NLPhilia Blog

I’d never heard of Rico Clusters before reading this great article on lifehack.org. it appears to be a great way to brainstorm and organize one’s thoughts, and with far less effort than Mind Mapping.

What is a Rico Cluster? Author Dustin Wax writes:

Rico clustering is a brainstorming tool that emphasizes the connection between left-brain openness and connection-making and right-brain verbalization and ordering. Although it is intended primarily as a writing tool, it can also be applied to teaching — and [Dr. Gabrielle] Rico herself has written about its use as a therapeutic tool, as well.

It looks interesting. I’ll have to try it on.

This lifehack.org article should be required reading for every person trying out for American Idol. It would certainly save Simon Cowell a lot of grief. Did you ever ask yourself, while watching the first few episodes of each season, why in the name of all that is holy doesn’t that guy know he sucks?! Scott H. Young suggests:

Most people won’t tell you what they think of you. And if they do want to slide you some honesty, it is usually wrapped in a sugar coating.

In other words, they lie to spare the wannabe next-American-Idol some hurt feelings.

And when you’re asking your friends and loved ones for feedback, guess what they’re doing.

Probably never occurred to you. 🙂

My favorite idea from the whole batch of sixteen:

Say Thanks – Some companies pay consultants millions of dollars to come by and show them how they are doing a bad job. At least some people will do it for free. Thank them so you don’t have to pay heavy consultant bills later.

I have to tell you, I’m already really good at responding to abuse criticism, but this article came just in time to reinforce things for me. I read it just before going to work yesterday, and at work I took an undeserved load of crap from a doctor who thought I was the person he needed to be mad at.

Some time back, I wrote this article for the Persuasion 101 newsletter. I’d like to re-post it here, as it hits on one of the key points in NLP the way I apply it to my life and work. It refers to a study I read in the Gallup Management Journal. The article follows:

Back in the day, serving a customer meant making the best product and delivering it on time. If you built a better mousetrap, they said, the world would beat a path to your door. But according to Gallup’s research, customers now assume “product parity”. In plain English, that means that if I need a widget, and if I’m no expert in widgets, I’m going to go to the widget store believing that no matter what brand of widget I buy, it will do what a widget is supposed to do. When it comes to serving the customer, giving them what they want when you say you’ll give it to them doesn’t score any points anymore. It only keeps us from losing the points they assume we already have.

Now, if I make widgets, this complicates my life. It means that no matter how good my widgets are — even if they’re the best widgets on the planet — customers won’t see that as a reason to buy mine.

OK… NOW what do we do?

Fortunately for us, there are businesses that know what to do, and we can learn from them. Gallup reports that the businesses that are able to persuade people to buy their products are doing two more things.

These super-salespeople are partnering with their customers to help them to solve their current problems. For example: People who develop medicine work on a scale too small to see with the unaided eye. When it comes time for them to explain what they’re doing, they can’t exactly point to it. So they start verbally describing it, and most people just glaze over. A friend of mine, who is a physician, a computer geek, and an artist, saw this problem and decided to solve it by creating a company which does beautiful, medically-accurate animation for biotechnologists. Now, when someone says to a biotech scientist, “Gee, can you draw me a picture?”, that scientist can call Animedix.

These super-salespeople are also educating their customers to help them grow and thrive. The founder of National Cash Register, for example, when it was still a brand-new company, used to help prospective customers with cash registers from competing companies. He’d teach them how to use and repair his competitors’ products. When someone asked him why he did this, he told them that it made the whole pie bigger, and when the pie got bigger, his piece of it naturally got bigger as a result.

Although we aren’t professional salespeople, we can learn a lot from these attitudes. We can’t get by on just being a good husband or good wife or good employee anymore, because everyone assumes “product parity”. If they aren’t happy with you, they’ll find another one. It’s time to look at our relationships with those we love and care about and, within our relationships to them, help them to solve their problems and help them learn and grow and thrive.

Think of it. I’m sure there’s at least one thing you’d rather not do. And I’m equally sure that there’s at least one person in your life for whom you would do it if they just asked. What is it about that person? What do they do for you that you would do that for them? And wouldn’t you like to be that kind of person for the significant people in your life?

How many ways can you develop to help those you love to solve their problems and grow and thrive? Have fun with it.

If you do much writing (or much reading) you’re probably aware that spoken and written language are two different animals. And even though we all speak our native languages fluently, we may or may not write that way. I know I’ve read some viciously bad writing in my time.

Seth Godin points to some interesting work by Steven Berlin Johnson in his brief article, The Secret of Writing to be Read.

Basically, short, simple sentences not only sell more books, but spread ideas farther and faster.

If you do any writing, this is worth noticing. Of course, Seth Godin is always worth noticing, in my opinion.

Richard Bandler and John LaValle will be teaching their Platform Skills and Public Speaking training in March of 2008 in Orlando, Florida. This training is for anyone who wants to be a better trainer and presenter, regardless of their skill level or interest in NLP™.

Link to the Charisma Enhancement page, which tells you how to get more information

Richard Bandler and John LaValle are training DHE™ in Orlando, Florida in February 2008.

For years Dr. Bandler studied how geniuses used their minds to accomplish what they did and was able to successfully replicate the results they produced. One day he noticed that all of the geniuses he knew got out of bed in the morning because they had to urinate. He decided that wasn’t good enough.

Link to the DHE site, which tells you how to get more information on the training

Learn to be more persuasive; spend the weekend with John LaValle and Richard Bandler at one of their most popular trainings: Persuasion Engineering®.

I’ve taken this training three times, and I can tell you it gets better and more powerful with every iteration. John and Richard are always trying new things and making their trainings better and more effective.

Link to the info page, which tells you how to get a sign-up packet.

Paul McKenna will be hosting a Licensed Master Practitioner training with Richard Bandler and John LaValle from November 17 through November 25. Nine intense days in London with three of the best!

Link to the training info page

Nick Kemp just let me know he has uploaded to his site a new interview with Steve Andreas. According to Nick, in this interview, Steve:

discusses modelling, how he first came across NLP in the 1970s and a message he would most like to pass on to the creators of NLP!

Link to Nick’s Web site (NLPMP3.com)

Wow… this should be interesting.

I started this blog out of my love for Neuro-Linguistic Programming and my desire to see more people learn to love it. Sure, I read great articles and find out about trainings and sales from certain trainers; I subscribe to their newsletters. But there may be lots of good folks out there with whom I’ll never have the opportunity to train because, for whatever reason, I haven’t heard of them and don’t know about their newsletters and mailing lists. And I bet the same is true of you.

So I hope that this will change that. I’m asking for articles, news, and sale notices from everybody who cares to submit them. If I like them, I’ll put them here. If I don’t like them, I won’t. (Hey… it’s my blog.)

I’ll ask for patience. I’m new to WordPress, I’m working alone in my spare time, and if I don’t get to your stuff immediately, it’s probably because I’m working or sleeping.

When I get a chance, I’ll create a “rules” page so you’ll know what I’m looking for and what I’m not. I’ll also be opening it up to comments when I get some content worth commenting on. In the meantime, pass the word.