23NLPeople Blog

A business trip in Turkey had a rather surprising turn of events last week.  I started off in Ankara to deliver a Metaphors of Business workshop to a business group there, before flying to Antalya to present a couple of talks at a major medical conference.  Having completed the presentations, Laura and I travelled south to Cirali for a few days break before flying home.  The car picked us up at 6pm and we were looking forward to relaxing by the sea.

Having dozed off a bit, I awoke to discover that the driver had lost control of the car and we were veering dangerously out of control.  A crash was inevitable and we braced ourselves accordingly.  I think the first impact was as we hit the side of the mountain, the next two came a bit later.  What became immediately obvious was that we were going to go off the side of the cliff.  Absolutely no doubt about that.  Also, I had absolutely no doubt that we were all going to be killed.  It was a rather strange realisation and not one I care to have again.  I have heard people on the television talk about close calls with certain death, but always figured it was just an expression.  I now know that this isn't necessarily the case and the realisation that one is about to die is a very special experience indeed.

The car left the road and over the edge we went at considerable speed.  Now, from a psychological perspective, what happened next was quite interesting to me.  I was absolutely certain that this would be fatal and two thoughts occured to me.

1. "Well, at least this will be quick."
2. An overwhelming sense of disappointment as I thought, "But there was so much more that I had planned to do..."

This second thought was delightfully interrupted by a terrific crash and impact and a showering of broken glass as our freefall descent was rudely interrupted by a small group of trees on which the car landed, wheels down, perpendicular to the angle of the trees. This latter detail meant that decelleration/impact injuries were minimal and that our landing was actually not that bad at all.  We looked at each other briefly noting each others surprise at this fortuitous change of events before struggling out of a broken window to safety.  That was when Laura looked at me and said those horrible words, "I think I'm bleeding."

What happened next was a whirlwind mix of the kindness of strangers, paramedics, blue lights, police cars and ambulances and sirens, CT scans and X-rays, blood tests and specialists with little torches and finally admission to the trauma ward of a central hospital where we got to spend most of the rest of our time in Turkey.

To say all this was a bit of a shock to the system would be quite correct, and the three days spent at the hospital gave us a lot of time to reflect on a few things.  I thought one of those things was worth sharing here.

From age 17, I spent a lot of time working in nursing homes and rest homes.  In part this was to fund myself through my student days, and I also worked periodically doing agency shifts for extra cash after I was qualified.  As a 17 year old, one thing that I noticed was that I was given an awful lot of advise from the older people who were keen that this young man looking after them didn't repeat the same mistakes that they did.  Much of this advice reflected a consistent theme.

- Don't allow social and emotional fears from preventing you from doing what you want to do.  This is advice I have pretty much live by.  It's partly why I have done so much in my life and explored so many different areas of human experience.

What I learned then, and still know to be true now, is that nursing and retirement homes tend to be full of people who know what they would do differently if only they could. 

It might seem dramatic, but when you are about to die - either quickly in a car accident, or in a few years from old age, you can get quite a different perspective on what you were so afraid of all that time ago.  It is amazing what suddenly doesn't matter any more.

I'm not talking about bungee jumping or playing with flame throwers or wrestling lions, I mean those things that bring social and emotional risk, those things that challenge our own "comfort zones", the things that challenge those rules we have somehow selected to live by and challenge what we consider to be normal and correct.  Social fear of being different from the way you are supposed to be, that is what I mean.

In my professional life I am regularly asked by NLP practitioners, coaches and therapists for assistance in building their respective practices and helping them to, "put themselves out there."  The most common reason people have for not doing so is fear - fear of being judged, fear of failing, fear of being successful, fear of being wrong, fear of being laughed at and so on.  Of course, the reality is once one puts themselves "out there" there will be judgement, there will be failures, there will be errors and if you are lucky, there just might be success. 

What most of these fears have in common is humiliation, loss of face and loss of percieved status.

One thing I have learned in my own life is that very little trouble comes from others who themselves are successful, in fact, the amount of support and encourage I receive from my peers is pretty incredible.  No, the majority of judgement and criticism that I receive comes from a small group who share the following characteristics:

• they don't know me, most have never met me
• they have never demonstrated anything original on any of their websites (those that have them) and in fact, most of what appears on their blogs appears to be little more than rehashing of my own blog posts and webpages
• none of them have ever presented any of their apparently acclaimed work in a written format, video, DVD or online presentation
• they make exceptional claims for their own brilliance and cynically deride and mock others

In short, they judge, but make sure that they are unavailable themselves to be judged.

I knew kids at school that behaved this way too.  They hid in tight social groups and could be as nasty to each other as they are to those people outside their groups.  They appear to feed on each other.

Luckily, most people grow out of that.  Most do, anyway.

One gentleman I knew when I was 17 told me that he wondered how many people limited their lives so that the kids that laughed at them at school wouldn't laugh at them again.  In childhood we meet the bullies and the nay-sayers who teach us to conform to their own restricted ideals.  To survive school, some people change their behaviour in order to receive approval....from bullies, and then they live the rest of their life that way until they get to the nursing home.

I think I was lucky.  My experience of people in nursing homes so keen for me to not live like this affected me in such a positive way early in life.  I am so glad that as we went over the cliff that I did not have a single thought of regret about my life.  I sincerely hope others would the same.

I don't know any of their names, and I doubt that any of them will ever read this, but regardless, I'd like to publicly thank the army of helpers that assisted in our rescue and in the delivery of the excellent aftercare.  We are both still hobbling about a bit but Laura is recovering well and has no lasting damage.  We intend to return to Turkey for another attempt at a holiday in Cirali where we spent our honeymoon three years ago and I will probably request the same driver.  I'm just a bit like that.

I'm currently in Antalya, Turkey, presenting at the 3rd National Congress of Morbid Obesity and Metabolic Surgery.  It's certainly quite an honour, given the sheer level of expertise and surgical skill presented by other presenters and delegates.  What is clear from the presentations and conversations I have had with various surgeons is the degree of dedication that these doctors have for their patients.  Patients for whom all other avenues of help have failed and whom for various reasons, are unable to change their own eating habits.

Clearly there is no one definitive solution but conferences such as this one are designed for experts from different fields to pool their knowledge in the spirit of lively debate and sharing resources in order to create advancements in the field.

Having an extensive nursing background in a number of clinical areas and attending events such as these, I am someetimes left me wondering about the behaviour of so many of my peers in the NLP and hypnotherapy arena who are so apt to criticise the medical professions for not knowing about NLP and hypnosis.

Whilst I had a very good turnout of surgeons for my presentation, what is regretable is the absense of any NLP and hypnotherapy practitioners from this and other such conferences I have attended.

To the question of, "Why don't doctors learn NLP?" all I can really answer is, "Why don't NLP practitioners learn medicine?"

I live at the back of the former home of J.M Barrie, author of Peter Pan, by the sea in Rustington, West Sussex.

As a teenager, my hobby was breeding tropical fish, primarily Mbuna cichlids from Lake Malawi and amongst other awards I once won a regional show with a guppy that I had selectively bred to have a blue sheen and an elongated upper tail fin.  Owing to space and overseas work commitments, my fish collection is currently reduced to a tropical brackish water aquaria and some goldfish.

I started studying the Qabalah and the Western esoteric system at age 18 and have been a small-time member of various lodges and orders.

As a nurse, I worked in a number of clinical areas including casualty, cardiothoracic surgery, neurosurgery and neurology.  As an occupational health advisor, I worked in the automotive industry, aviation hydraulics and education.  I once worked as a consultant to a bakery, which lasted a few days.  I raised a number of serious issues about health and safety which culminated in the employees staging a walk out and a senior manager threatening to "do" me in the car park.

In my early 20's I briefly worked as a clinical researcher (I forget the exact title, but it was probably "assistant") It was the single most stressful time of my life and everything I touched either broke, fell over, spilled or went missing.  I learned years later that the entire research team celebrated when I resigned in tears after six months. 

Many times I have attended an accident or heart attack victim - the two most recent were on a transatlantic flight and at London Victoria station.  I am also disappointed at how unwilling people are to offer assistance but always impressed and relieved with how amazing and generous people are when they are directed to help.

I have been a motorcyclist since I was 16 and only learned to drive a car 2 years ago.  My first motorbike was a Yamaha DT50 and my current motorcycle is a Suzuki Bandit 600.

I have never attended a football match, cricket match or any other form of sports event.  I have no intention of ever doing so.

My favourite authors of fiction are Iain Banks, James Herbert and Paulo Coalho.  My favourite ever book is, "Illusions" by Richard Bach but I didn't enjoy his others.

I don't do "Skype sessions".

Despite a popular rumour to the contrary, I have never had the police turn up at a workshop nor have I ever hit an attendee with a chair (but I confess to having been tempted once or twice).  This story originates from two things - I once punched a freak of an assistant-therapist at an event where I was refused permission to leave the room because he felt that I was "running away from my feelings".  He stood blocking my way whilst a bunch of assistants moved in to love-hug me.  That part happened about 17 years ago.  I do not know where the origin of the police part of the story comes from, but I am aware of the person who likes to tell that story at his NLP practice group in the UK.  Curiously, this same person also likes to tell people that he reviewed and edited my book, "The Rainbow Machine."  He didn't.

The three films I least enjoyed were The Shawshank Redemption, Flightplan and Lord of the Rings.  Lord of the Rings is the only film I didn't bother staying 'til the end for.  Oh, and Star Wars.  Truly dreadful.

For my birthday last year, I was given some baby Giant African Snails (they are now enormous) and this year for my 40th, an AK47.  Laura knows me well.

I have been keeping and training rats for several years.  My current two, Minni and Mika, are very affectionate female dumbo rats who are currently about 4-5 months old.  Their favourite food is pasta and when they tire of following me about the apartment, they tend to nest down in the stationary cupboard.  I have lost count of how many times i have had people tell me that they don't like rats because of their tails.

My favourite book as a child was, "The Amateur Naturalist" by Gerald Durrell.

The strangest thing that ever happened to me occurred when I visited a monastery high up in the hills in north east India and without me realising was mistaken for  visiting dignitary.  Like a fool, I interpreted all the meets and greets merely as exceptional hospitality shown to an overseas visitor and went along with it.  The moment I was ushered onto a podium in very large and busy conference room the misunderstanding became apparent to all.

I make model aeroplanes.

I like to study all sorts of things, and have taken courses and study in philosophy, fungi, magic/illusions, stand up comedy, self-defence, car mechanics, herbalism, waterskiing, astronomy, and firearms.  If I am ever missing, look for me at the nearest rocky beach with tidal rock pools, I can spend days there and not notice the time passing.

Why I think outcomes are over-rated.  For further details of Metaphors of Movement training, please see: Metaphors of Movement

"Why are you always bashing NLP?"

I get asked this quite a lot.  A couple of years ago in Liverpool, a workshop participant said, "What happened, were you bitten by an NLPer when you were a child?"  I get his point and did wonder if maybe, just maybe, I had pushed it a bit far.  But I admit, on reflection I haven't changed my position one bit.

But here's the point.  I don't, and never have, "bashed NLP."  Really.

It's the behaviour NLP practitioners that I bash, not the model. 

The behaviour of so many NLPers makes me reluctant to consider myself "an NLPer", I think to do so would be a mistake lest I get associated with those individuals that, quite frankly, I regard as foolish.  Whilst NLP forms just a small, but important, part of what I do, but I certainly don't draw my identity from such activity.  

Some of the behaviours of so many practitioners that I do object to is as follows:

- the obsession with status
- showing off on Facebook when they get a client
- showing off on Facebook what an amazing time they are having and how happy they are
- the amount of alcohol and drugs consumed by so many NLPers that I know
- ludicrous claims made for the power of the techniques
- discussion of client cases on public forums where members basically ask, "what should I do with this client?"
- obsession with pseudoscience (i.e. "energies", "quantum healing", "law of attraction")
- the inability of so many NLP trainers to stay financially solvent, whilst simultaneously promoting themselves as business success coaches
- people suffering "too much NLP", whose fixation is on "how much pleasure can I stand" and who have rendered themselves completely dysfunctional in normal life

In addition to this, the level of bickering, gossip and sheer humourless smug hostility displayed on internet discussion groups such as NLPConnections and NLPWeekly is horrible. It suggests to me an unpleasant paranoia and in-group mentality to the regular posters who simultaneously bemoan the lack of participation from other people involved in NLP.

Now, all of the above moans are about behaviours that can be equally applied to all sorts of people outside of NLP.  But here's my issue: we don't see dentists behaving in these ways, or doctors, or nurses, firemen or the police.  If they did, the governing bodies that maintain professional standards would take a pro-active role in correcting the public representation of that profession.

There is no end of self-professed groups and individuals pretending to be in possession of governance over NLP, yet I have yet to see any such pro-active role being assumed by any of them.

Thus the public image of NLP is seriously in decline, but it is not "NLP" that the public experiences, but rather it is the behaviour of the practitioners that is witnessed.  The naive observer may not, and indeed usually doesn't, necessarily distinguish between the practitioner and the practice.  The result of this is frustrating to say the least, so I seek to distance myself from NLP practitioners and the embarrassing public image that so many present.