Categories
NLP

The loneliness of the long distance trainer

In 1962 the was the film, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, starring Tom Courtenay, and written by Alan Stillitoe.

It tells how Colin, a youth from the English of Nottingham, famous for Robin Hood, a boy who was rebellious, and from a poor background, was caught stealing from a bakery, and was sent to a reform school.

It was at the reform school that he found solace, satisfaction in long distance running, he could escape from everyday problems, review his past and re-evaluate the privileges and rank given to him by the authorities a the borstal or reform school.



It was whilst he was running that he had to push through the pain barrier, that pain that grips the stomach, and at which time many people give up the race. It is when he pushed through this barrier that he could escape into his world.

Many years ago, I found the joy of long distance running, or as I knew it, cross country running.

As a boy, I would set off on a route, where there could be no turning back, I just had to continue to reach my destination.

I would not jog, but set off at a fast speed, I needed to do more paces, or strides, than most people as I have short fat hairy legs.

My legs would begin to ache. I would start to breath heavily, and begin to sweat.

I knew that within a few moments I would get the extreme pain in my stomach, the stitch as we called it. If I pushed through that, it would disappear, the pain in my legs would go, my breathing would ease, and I would feel the cooling wind on my body.

It was as if I was floating on air, my legs would be ponding away, but I felt nothing.

It was then that I felt I was in a different world, my own world, where I could be by myself, to think, to plan, to review, and it was so plain to see what I was to do, to be able to plan.

Unlike Colin in the film The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, I have found that it is of no use to be rebellious against authority. Colin, under the guidance of the governor of the borstal, becomes the best long distance runner in the region, and he is entered into a competition against a local school.

Colin soon realises who is the person he must beat to win the race, and as soon as the race starts, Colin over powers the competition, leading the race from the start. As he runs he is in his own world, reflecting on the horrid past he had lived, and all he saw was the hopelessness of the future.

He stops just before the finish line, and although the onlookers and supporters shouted for him to continue, he could see no future, and rebelled against all, allowing the other to race past him and win the race.

For me I want a brighter future, I know that there will be pain, times when I am alone in a far off country, having to eat by myself in the evening, to go to bed without a good night hug or kiss, when I have a long stretch of training days, perhaps 21 days without a break from 9am in the morning until 6pm at night. I know that there will be many obstacles along the way, people not agreeing to my methods, my teaching, people who have problems they want me to solve, which is over and above the course content. There will be people who will be trying to trip me up, to make me fall, but in my extra hightened state of awareness I can see them before they can strike. But, if I push on, the pain I will suffer will be overcome, and I will be able to see things much clearer, it will be as if I am on a cloud, being able to work at a higher level.

I know that the end will come, and that if I push on, just like when I was a younger me, I will win, and all who ran the race with me will be winners too.

I plan for that brighter future, I have nothing else in my mind, so much so, that I love my job.

Categories
Travels

What a difference a day makes

After my new experience of first class travel on the Italian TRENITALIA Eurostar to Rimini, and the thunderstorms on arrival, I have woken to a different day.

A near cloudless day, I look out over the sandy beach of Rimini, which is just a mass of sunshades, all segmented into regimented lines, of different colours, designating which hotel they belong to.



Early morning view of Rimini (Italy) beach from the Bellevue Hotel my balcony.

Although it is still only 8:30am, holiday makers and sun seekers are out and about, even some taking an early dip in the sea. Too early for me.

Now I need to get ready for the start of NLP Italy’s NLP Master Practitioner course, and stop using a free internet connection.


If you would like book Phillip Holt to deliver courses in your country, please contact him via the email on the left or CLICK here.

Categories
Travels

First class travel?

These days I seem to be traveling most of the time, but today traveling from London to Rimini in Italy gave me a form of transport I have never traveled before.

Rather than take a taxi from my home to Gatwick Airport, I took a train, or two trains, and knowing how public transport is usually good, but on the odd occasion there is a delay or breakdown, I find it better to take an earlier train or bus than I would normally take just in case.

This meant that I had extra time to watch the world go by in the departures lounge. I would have preferred an extra hours sleep.

As there is no direct flight to Rimini from London, I took a flight to Bologna, (Italy), a beautiful city I have visited before and having some great statues and history. See previous entries.

From Bologna, I had to take a train to Rimini and as I waited on the platform it started raining. So much so for sunny weather.

I had to buy a ticket for this train when I arrived at the station, but was told it was full. But then I was told, I could travel first class, Standing.

How can you have first class standing?

OK, I could get to stand in the first class carriage, with those extra wide and comfortable seats. But I would be standing in my shoes. Are they first class? My socks are quite old now and wearing thin, so not all that comfortable unlike the armchair seats.

Still I was superior to the “ordinary passengers, the other side of the dividing glass door.

Arriving in Rimini with sore feet, it was still raining, and I had to wait for a taxi in the drip, drip, dripping of rain, along with four other people. After a long wait, a taxi arrived and the first person got in that and disappeared, leaving another two in front of me. Shortly later another taxi drove up and the next person got in, and beckoned by the taxi driver so did the second person, the he asked me to get in.

The last time this happened to me was in Cairo, when I got a taxi from the airport to my hotel. Along the way, the driver picked up other passengers, and dropped them off, making a fortune at my expense. He was not happy when I refused to give a tip.

My Rimini driver still charged each of us the standard charge for each of our individual journeys,even though we traveled together.

Once in my compact room, I looked out of my window with a balcony, to see a big thunderstorm forming.

Oh well, perhaps it will not be my chance to see all those bikinis on the beach just across the road.

Oh Poo Poo.

Categories
NLP Travels

Another trip starts today

Today I start another trip to deliver trainings and workshops.

My first port of call will be Rimini in Italy to co-train with other Society of NLP trainers the Master NLP Practitioner course organised by NLP Italy.

To the disgust perhaps of some people, I have a couple of days off, and there is no point in returning back to the UK, so I may find myself in my swimming shorts, laying out on a sunbed on the beach, not looking at all the bikinis as they come back from a swim in the warm sea. No I will not be doing that, as I am sure my friend Alessio Roberti will find work for me to do.

I leave Rimini an the 20th, to go to Kuala Lumpa in Malaysia to deliver a workshop called Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Human Resource Professionals, and attend meetings, only to return to Italy to co-train in an NLP Practitioner course in Milan.

So I may be “off air” from my blog for a time, but I will be storing up experiences to write about soon.


Categories
NLP Thoughts

Memories of Harlequin Ladybirds and Batik Printing

It was about this time last year that using my peripheral vision, or Phillip’s Sausage, I spotted an unusual infestation of a an insect I had never seen before the Harlequin Ladybird. (click to read)

This Harlequin Ladybird was a very new species in the UK, and I would have thought I would have seen the same sight this year. But no.

I wonder what has happened to them?

Have they been eradicated?

Is the climate not suitable for them?

Is it the case of H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds?

Here the Martians are defeated when they invaded earth, not by man, but by tiny microbes, the red weed.

I was reminded of the past by an email I received from Vodafone Turkey, which showed a ladybird.


Vodafone Turkey

When my eyes saw the image, it passed the image to my visual cortex. My visual cortex, then said, “um, what is this I see”, and went on a transderivational search, searching for past experiences of images which matched the one I was seeing now. It went searching in the filing cabinets of my memories until it came up with a match or near match, and thus the Harlequin Ladybird .

Other memories came to mind from the advert, that of Malaysian batik printing.


Batik fabric

Batik fabric printing is an art form from South East Asia , especially Indonesia and Malaysia, where a cotton fabric, and traditionally the process requires that a line or a patch is placed or drawn with wax on cloth. This is done so that the surface is protected from the colour dye. The cloth is then dipped in the a dye, the colour dye does not penetrate the area that has been waxed. The wax stops the colour being absorbed into the cloth, therefore the surface is divided into dyed and un-dyed areas.

Strange how our mind works, and how memories come flooding back.

Categories
NLP Travels

I can fly

In my previous article, I wrote about learning from reading, will you be able to undertake a task after reading.

I have many interests and hobbies in my life, and as Dale Winton once told me when he was a DJ on Radio Trent, “Phillip, you have unusual hobbies“.

One of my interests is aircraft, and flying. I wanted to join the British RAF as an air traffic controller, even going to the officer selection section which lasted for a grueling three days at the RAF Station Biggin Hill.

I love to research about aircraft, the old aircraft, Spitfires, Hurricanes the Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero (SM.79), and always had the ambition to fly one to become a pilot.

Way back when I was much younger, I took a trial flying lesson, the cost was too much to continue, but what an experience. I loved it, but got totally confused and disorientated when the instructor asked me to turn the aircraft in a 360 degree turn. I was completely lost, as I had no barrings, nothing to tell me as I looked out of the cockpit window in which direction was I heading as I started the turn and thus not knowing when to stop the turn. There were no houses, trees, signposts, just open sky. I failed to take a compass heading before I started the maneuver.

Since then I have read many books on aircraft, on flying skills, I have learned about the process of flying, how an aircraft stays up in the air, I know the terms and language a pilot will use.

During a recent trip to Italy, my friend and colleague Gianni Golfera, said he would take me and teach me to fly. Gianni is a very experienced pilot, having his own stunt plane, and I understand an ex world stunt champion.

We set off one morning to a local airfield and booked a single engined aircraft, Gianni wanted to go to another airfield where his own stunt plane was parked so he could practice some maneuvers.

Phillip Holt getting ready to fly in Italy
Phillip Holt getting ready to fly in Italy

After the pre fight checks, Gianni started to tell me the does and dont’s of flying an aircraft as we began to taxi to the end of the runway.

My heart was in my mouth, and thumping ten to the dozen as we raced down the runway and shot into the sky.

Phillip Holt in the aircraft cockpit and the aircrafts' controls  Phillip Holt in the aircraft cockpit and the aircrafts' controls
Phillip Holt in the aircraft cockpit and the aircrafts’ controls.

My mind was going through all I had learned, from the books I had read, from the previous flying lesson so many years ago, when Gianni said “you have the controls“, and I found myself holding onto the joystick, stiff as a board, trying to keep the aircraft at the same altitude and flying in a straight line.

One minute I was at 3,000 feet, the next I was climbing, only to then find myself diving as I over compensated trying to get back to the correct height.

Before I could get used to this alien experience, Gianni took back control so that we could land at the new airfield, and he could take to the air in his stunt plane. There would be no way that you would find me in that plane.

Gianni Golfera and his stunt plane
Gianni Golfera and his stunt plane

I watched Gianni going through his paces, taking a video for him as he looped the loop, and I reflected on my experience.

My mind knew what to do when I was at the controls, but my body did not. My muscles did not react as I wanted them to do, they were uncooperative. So, I spent time running through in my mind the flight, relaxing my body, teaching my eyes how to read the instruments, how to read the horizon, the landmarks through the front and side windows, and noticed that as I was flying, there were body sensations I had missed, which told me if I was turning left or right, going up or down.

Even though I was standing on the ground waiting for Gianni to land, I was able to rehearse in my head and involve my whole body how to fly, by reliving the experience.

Once Gianni had finished his practice, we got into the rather slower and thankfully less maneuverable aircraft we had flown in with, and headed down the runway to head back to where we had start earlier. Then the aircraft began to shudder, and emit strange noises. Gianni aborted the flight, and parked the aircraft, saying there was something wrong and we would have to go back by road, leaving the aircraft for an engineer to look over.

So my second lesson was not to be.

A few days later, we were due to drive up to Milan for me to give a PhotoReading course, and Gianni picked me up early from the hotel, and took me for my second lesson.

This time my mind was prepared, I had rehearsed my body to relax, my mind was ready to accept feedback from all my senses, and I had Phillip’s Sausage in place.

Once in the air, and I took control of the aircraft, I forced myself to relax, to enjoy the experience, and began to move the controls, to get feedback as to what happened as I moved the joystick forwards or backwards, turned it to the left or right, and then combinations.

I could now recall what I had read, and experiment, and as I did, calibrating what my senses were telling me, to what the aircrafts’ instruments were showing, to what I was seeing outside.

I had control.

Now I had time to enjoy this new alien form of transport, and was able to take time to look at the landscape, the small lakes with water birds far below, I watched the coastline slip below me, making fine adjustments so to keep the aircraft on the course Gianni wanted, following his instructions with easy movements, to change direction, to head to the new airfield so he could practice in his stunt plane again.

On the return flight back, I again took control, and this time it was easier, with practice, I was getting better.

Learning has to be a whole body experience. My body had experienced flying before, maybe many years before, but I believe that once we have learned something, once we have experienced something, it is there for life, and all that is needed is for the right stimulus, the right trigger to be given and the old learning will surface.

In NLP it is said:- 

do something once, you can do it again


Immediately after finishing the PhotoReading course in Milan, I had to get to Istanbul, Turkey, and it was with joy that as we flew over the coastline of Italy, I looked down, to see the very same area I had taken control of that little aircraft, the very same lakes.

I felt good. Thank you Gianni.

I have so much more to learn.

Categories
Books NLP PhotoReading

Can you do from just reading?

I am asked often, during courses, when people make inquiries, asking questions, what books do I recommend for them to read to learn this or that.

I am often at a loss what to say, as there are so many books available, in fact we are overwhelmed by written material, and every man and his dog seems to have written a book.

What information do they need?

What do they wish to achieve?

What will they put the knowledge to do?

No one book will contain all the knowledge on a subject, there will be a bit in this book, a bit in that book, even the Encyclopaedia Britannica only skims the truth, the full facts about our world, for as we research and discover new facts, new theories, new ideas, so what was written becomes incorrect, old and out of date.

I devour books. This week alone I have brought ten books. Some books are on the training subjects I give, NLP, memory, phobias, fears, stop smoking, weight loss, and more. Some are fiction, recommended by Andy Tuck, the General Manager of Borders book shop in Kingston upon Thames, as I said to him I was enjoying reading the complete and unabridged novels of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

We can all learn so much from books, as long as we realise that the book was written by another human being, who has their own understanding on the world, on the subject matter, and are they correct?

Reading Sherlock Holmes, I came across a passage in The Hound of the Baskervilles, which could sum up what I have just said, as Sherlock Holmes was supposed to have a brilliant mind, as he says:-

“Certainly, though I cannot guarantee that I carry all the facts in mind. Intense mental concentration has a curious way of blotting out what has passed. The barrister who has his case at his finger end, and is able to argue with an expert upon his own subject, finds that a week or two of the courts will drive it all out of his head once more…….”

Another aspect of learning from books, is getting the knowledge into the brain, but will this enable us to do the thing physically we have just learned.

Take riding a bike. Say you have no knowledge of riding a bike, you have seen people doing so, but never ridden one yourself.

So you go to the bookshop, buy a book, Learn to ride a bike in a day, and read and understand the concepts, the procedures, the mechanics of riding a bike.

Would you be able to ride a bike?



No.

Reading gives us knowledge, but does not teach our body how to do it.

Doing something is a whole body experience.

We have to get the knowledge into our brain.

We have to get our body to act upon the instructions from our brain. In the case of riding a bike, how to keep balance on two wheels, How to push one leg down on the peddle with the correct amount of pressure, whilst allowing the other leg to rise, and at the same time steer the bike by moving the handle bars, which also will help the balance.

So I have ten books to get through, to extract knowledge, and then enact upon the knowledge for the purpose I want. That is the beauty of PhotoReading, being able to absorb 20,000 – 30,000 WPM, a page a second. Once it is in my mind I will have to activate that knowledge, to put into action what I have now in my mind, to do it.

Reading alone will not make us the expert who can do, we have to practice, to do it, to experience it. That is why I ask people to do the courses I teach, not just read about them, as in my courses we do.

Categories
Uncategorized

One door closes, another opens

Over the years, many things have happened to me, I have had many experiences, I have visited many places, some have been good, and some have been bad.

My life is and has been a rich tapestry, and the work as I look at it is unfinished, for I know my work of art has a long way to go.

As I look back at this tapestry, my mind goes back to when I was a young lad.

At the back of the family home, at the bottom of the garden, was a field, not large, but a place full of fun, it was our play ground. It was uncultivated, just a few well trodden paths crossing beds of short coarse heather, with their little mauve flowers which attracted many bees gathering the nectar and pollen.

Beds of heather in Isabella's Plantation Richmond Park
Beds of heather in Isabella’s Plantation Richmond Park
Click here to see video

In those days, my mind seems only to remember summers with no bad weather, only warm sunny days, and in some daze as I lay in an oasis of green patches of grass, looking up into the sky, I would watch clouds slowly drift over me, ever changing their shapes and shades of white and gray, producing faces, animals, landscapes, my imagination ran wild. They were real to me, and they gave me messages, insights to what could be my future, and what had happened to me in my past.

Little did I know that this learning would become useful to me in my future life, in my training of NLP.

I realised then at that early age, that these images I was seeing in the clouds, were only clouds, that it was my mind that was making a meaning out of them, creating an understanding. I did not understand about the way the brain, how it deletes, distorts and generalises to make meanings of our experiences. I did not know about George Miller and his 7+/- 2 theory of how much the human mind can take in at any one moment, I did not even know there was such a phrase as transderivational search, where we have to go back in our memory banks, our filing cabinets of past experiences to get an understanding of what is happening to us.

I did not know that one day as I sat down in the heather on a cushion of soft grass, that a bee had chosen to rest there too, and quite rightly, it stung me, right on my bottom.

I ran to the house in extreme pain to my mother, and she pulled down my short knee length trousers, my underpants to reveal the bees stinger, still embedded in my bottom. She quickly used a pair of tweezers and removed the sting, and applied a medicine to remove the pain.

Do not ask me if the cure had any scientific bases, I still do not know. I knew mother had the power to remove pain, I believed in her abilities.

The medicine was a small, blue, round, rock like block, contained in a piece of muslin clothe. It was used on wash days to put into the whites only wash, to make the whites look whiter.

This is a original little bag of Reckitt's Blue by Reckitt Coleman of Hull, England, Circa 1950s, as used on laundry day when performing the final rinse of clothes in the dolly tub.
Blue Dolly Bag

Once applied, mother paraded me up and down the street, pulling down my trousers to show the housewives my blue bum.

I still remember my embarrassment to this day.

But now I laugh at the incident, the pain of the sting has long gone, the embarrassment now is just funny, I do not dwell of the negative, in fact I have changed the past, my memory now is funny. It is of a small boy with his trousers round his knees, being pulled up and down the street, with a bum the colour of the summers sky. I even giggle at the thought of it.

It is an attitude of mind. I could dwell in the negative, and have a phobia of bees, of blue dolly bags, or wash days, but I choose to change my memory, my history, and so my attitude to now and the future changes.

And so, as I look at my rich tapestry, there are times where I have been hurt by people, done wrong by them, where I had done wrong to others, where there have been times and had bad experiences, and it is my attitude to know that those times are in the past, finished, and like the clouds, I can change them to become whatever I want.

Today, many things have happened already that tells me that if I go into the future with a positive attitude, good things will happen, as I forge a new partnership into my trainings.

I know I will not need to show my blue bum again, because what ever has happened in the past is finished with, I have learned from those times, once bitten twice shy, and a new era has started, as one door closes and new door opens, and I am willing to go through the door with a smile on my face and happiness in my heart.

Note:- Blue bags can be obtained from Retonthenet

Categories
Thoughts

SpecSavers, well done

One year ago I had to buy some more glasses, (see previous entries), and as I had used a local branch of SpecSavers where I live in Kingston upon Thames, in the UK, for some years, I returned to them.

The offer of two pairs of glasses for the price on one, (really?), suits me, as I can carry both pairs around the world, if I break, damage or lose a pair, I have another ready to take its’ place. Another great asset is that one pair has green frames and the other has blue frames, so I could be colour co-ordinated.

I do not wear the all the time as they are for reading, but being bi-focal, I can keep them on, but as I do a lot of reading, I really do need them.

Three weeks ago, one of the arms off pair of glasses one, dropped off, no problem, I had another pair. I must be my fault, perhaps I sat on them, perhaps I could have abused them. I could not remember doing so, but then am I aware of every thing I do?

I wore my second pair, and live continued as normal, a trip to Italy, to Turkey and then on to Bahrain to give courses.

Whilst in the training room in Bahrain, I took my second pair of glasses off to give the presentation, and put them in my shirt pocket. When the time came for the participants to do the exercise I wanted them to do to reinforce their learning, I reached inside my pocket to get my glasses, put them on, to realise that the arm off these glasses had become detached.

Now this time, I know I was not abusive to my glasses, I had treated them with the love and affection they deserved, after all, they were now my only pair. Yes the frames were thin, light etc, but then we have to use them, wear them, that is what they are for.

Like many modern consumer goods, cars, TV’s, computer, they have a life expectancy, and it must be the same with these glasses, as both were the same style of frame.

Now I was in a mess, no glasses, four days of training left for me to give, e-mails to answer, and the latest book I was reading, The Complete Works of Sherlock Homes to finish.

Oh Poo Poo.

There was no way to get them repaired, I tried and the shopkeeper did not want to know, or did not have the correct equipment.

I purchased a pair of off-the-shelf reading glasses. Not bad, not the correct strength, but I could read.

On returning to the UK, I went straight to SpecSavers, and of cause they presupposed that I had damaged them, and it was suggested that it was the way I took them off, until I pointed out that on one pair the right arm had come off, and on the other it was the left.



SpecSavers broken glasses


Now I went into the shop with an attitude of non confrontational, to be friendly, to seek help, and that is what I got in return.

Without any to do, my records were called up, and immediately I was offered new frames, placing my existing lenses into new frames. Unfortunately they had no frames in stock.

Oh Poo Poo.

But, they would get some more, and as soon as they did, they would call me.

Today, one week later, they did telephone, but only one new frame had arrive.

Still now I can see properly to read and type, even if I have to readjust my eyes back to my old pair after using the off-the-shelf ones for two weeks.

Well done SpecSavers. I will await the blue frames, so I can go out in the streets colour matching with my eyes.

Categories
NLP

Criteria in NLP, or Values of Neuro Linguistic Programming

In life we have high-level generalisations, those that describe criteria or what is known as our values, those that are important to us.

Although we think ourselves as being rational people, we are more often driven by our emotions, which can be defined as our values or criteria, and these drive our behaviour, even though we may not be aware of them, they are working away at the subconscious level.

Values or criteria will be different in each and every one of us.
 
Some people drink alcohol because it makes them feel relaxed, reduces their inhibitions, to enjoy company of others, a social gathering, to escape from reality, the intoxication feeling, or to enjoy the taste, these are the values or criteria, that drive them or changes their behaviour.

Others, do not like the intoxication feeling, loosing control, deep seated beliefs maybe from a religious upbringing or culture.

Some people want to fulfill the value or criteria of looking good, to be seen as trendy, up-to-date, to fit in to society at work, school or holiday. Thus they buy fashionable clothes.

Others will want to be comfortable, to change their character, create a different persona, to hide their body.

The criteria we use, or the values we place on our behaviours, will drive us towards or away from doing something, often without us knowing why we are doing that something, as our criteria and values are operating at a subconscious level.

Get to know your own values and criteria, notice your thoughts, feelings, your internal representations, and if things are not working, change them now.

See Once Bitten, Twice Shy .  This will help you notice your own values and criteria.