Author: nlpnow

Categories
Culture Thoughts Travels

Happy New Year

A Happy New Year, I hope 2009 will be the first of the best years of your life.

Some hours ago, as the we entered 2009 here in Malaysia, it was nothing different, many people had gone to bed, the change of the year paid little significance to the people around me.
It is the Chinese New Year that is the major time for celebration, this year at the end of January.
But to me the Chinese New Year has little significance.
It is the same with most of the festive celebrations around the world. In the UK, Europe, America, Christmas is the most important time of the year, a family time. People start saving for the next Christmas as soon as the old one has finished.
Yet, in the Middle East, Turkey, Christmas has no significance at all, it means nothing. Perhaps Eid, or Eid ul-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, is the most important time of the year.
As I sat here in Bukit Mertajam, Malaysia as the old year passed by and 2009 entered, I was updating my SlingCatcher software, so that I can continue watching UK TV from my home in  Norbiton Hall, Kingston upon Thames, England, everyone else had gone to bed. A few fire crackers were going off, but apart from that, I was alone and quiet.
I was then thinking, about friends in Bahrain and Turkey, just finishing work, for it was still only 6pm, 31st December 2008 there. In Italy it was only 5pm, I had only just finished talking to friends there about future engagements/courses. In the UK, they were probably just having their afternoon tea and biscuits at 4pm, yet on the East Coast of America, they were probably just waking up to start the last day of the 2008 year. A friend in Australia must be well asleep by then 3am. 
So what is time? Is it a construct that we humans have to use to understand where we stand in our existence. Time fits nicely into our lives, as the Earth rotates around the Sun every 24 hours which we have defined as a day, and there is a 365 cycle to this rotation which we have defined as a year.
But it is all relative to where we are standing on the Earth. 
What is the actual time? What is the actual day?
Have we got the figures right even then, because we have had to adjust our watches by one second on the 31st December 2008, to get them accurate again with actual time. Not only that, every four years we have to add on and extra day to get our timings right.
What about peoples idea of celebrating the New Year?
We in the Western/European world are now 2009, the Gregorian calendar starting January 1st, today.
Come the 25th January, the Chinese will celebrate Chinese New Year, which is 4707, the Year of the Ox. which is also known by its formal name of Yi Chou. 己丑.
In the Muslim world they follow the Hijri calendar, it is now 1430 AH. Their year approximately 28th December 28, 2008 (evening) to17th December 17, 2009 (evening).
It is all down to our culture, our beliefs, our up-bringing, which is so deep seated we will fight over who is right or wrong.
Everything is relative to how we see the world we live in.
Let us make the best we can our our world and the others, by respecting each others New Year.
Categories
Uncategorized

What a difference

I have just received a couple of photographs from Istanbul to make me feel really uncomfortable here in Bukit Mertajam, Malaysia.

The humidity is really so high, I can feel the water in the air as I breath in. It has been raining which adds to the humidity.

But the temperature is so high too.

Too much for me. I have a fan and an air conditioner working, with my shirt undone, yet I am still sweating.

Oh for a bit of Istanbul.

    
Snow from an office window in Istanbul 30/12/08

Categories
Thoughts

Another Gadget

I love gadgets and electronics.

After years of working for computer manufacturers, and being an Amateur Radio (Radio Ham) enthusiast, (G8YJQ), electronics and gadgets fasinates me.
If it is new, I want it, I want to see how it works, has it any benefit to me.
I may try it once, understand how it works, and then never use the gadget again. But, my curiosity has been satisfied.
Visiting many countries as I do, staying in contact is a must.
With the internet, as long as a WiFi connection (free) is available I can be in contact with others.
With mobile phones, covering nearly every square inch of our planet and beyond, we can stay in touch, sometimes at a high cost, sometimes with a bit of out-of-the-box thinking, cheap calls can be obtained.
One way to get cheap mobile calls is to get a local sim card of the country I am visiting, a local telephone number.
But that means I have to carry two telephones, one for my British mobile, and one for the local country I am visiting.
More holes in my trouser pockets.
Problem solved now.
I came across a mobile phone, the HKV HK5000 Dual Sim Mobile.

HK500 Phone

The HK5000 allows me to have two sim cards in the same hand unit, and it will operate both, so I can make and receive a phone call from my British telephone number 07973178602, plus my Italian, Turkish, Malaysian or whichever one I wish to insert.
Now I only need to carry one phone.
Forget about the new iPhones, Blackberry, HTC, PDA’s smartphones, that do things I personally rarely use, I now have a phone that is practical, two phones in one, that is to say, I can make and receive phone calls easy, does not take up space, and I do not have to remember to charge two phones.
Sadly, it only lasted six months, so I reverted back to iPhones. How time flies, it is now 2016 and I wrote the above article in 2008, how things change. Oh Poo Poo, and I still buy gadgets..
Categories
Culture English Sayings Travels

Wedding Meal

Weddings are a big celebration time in any country, a time of joy, a time of sadness.

It is a time for joy that two people have chosen to spend their lives together, to share with each other the ups and downs of life, to learn to give to the partner more than you get back, to communicate, to talk.

It is a time of sadness, when one relationship ends and another starts, in that the parents have to learn to let go, that their child has left the nest to find their own tree or place to start a home, to be making their own choices and decisions in life.

It is the same the world over, the only difference is the way the ceremony is conducted.

Mee Len was invited to the celebration meal of the wedding of her old school friend, Mee Siam Ho‘s daughter Su Ann and Teil Hong.

The hotel hall was packed tight with guests, not just one wedding diner, but two, with a small six foot wooden screen dividing the celebrations. The other group seemed to be celebrating with a Karaoke sign along, ours was a more “getting to know you” meal, with old friends and relatives getting together again.

Mee Len had left her schools, The Convent School in Bukit Mertajam  and the MBS (Methodist Boys School) in Penang, many years ago, and Mee Siam had invited many of the old girls to the wedding meal.

Unlike western or European wedding meals which are served on individual plates, the Chinese way is to serve the helpings on a central serving dish in the middle of the table, and those at the table help themselves.

I have often talked in my courses of how a whole fish is served on the central server, and so it was last night.

Pomfret (Tau tay) Fish
Within minutes the flesh of the fish was consumed, leaving just the head and bones, just like a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Pomfret (Tau tay) Fish bones

Another dish served was a suckling pig, a young pig that has only fed on its mother’s
milk. The piglet is killed between the ages of two to six weeks, and roasted, only being served on such special occasions as a wedding diner.
Suckling Pig
Within minutes of the wedding diner being finished, the place was empty, unlike other cultures where there would be dancing and drinking.
Categories
NLP

It is good to get feedback

It is good to hear from previous participants and to get feedback from them, what they are doing, how they are using the techniques I have taught them.

Many of my past participants will take further courses with me, perhaps the NLP Master Practitioner, or the Memory or Mind Map courses after taking the PhotoReading course.

So I must be doing something right.

It does not matter what country I am in, nor which language the participants speak, with a good translator, and with me getting feedback on how well the participants are understanding what I am teaching, continually adapting the content of the course to the cultural and understanding of that group, right down to the individuals, I get results that they can take away with them.

So, I am sure Fabio from Italy (see NLP Practitioner, VICENZA, Italy) will not object if I give the feedback here. It has really made my Xmas, a Christmas present I would like more of.


Dear


SUPER FANTASTIC


MAGIC Phillip, how are U?


I’m Fabio from Italy..


I did the NLP Pratictioner in Vicenza with U..


I write U just now to tell U that your lessons were fantastic..


Really really Fantastic.. I feel now what I felt in September..


I still remember your voice grow inside deeper & deeper & deeper..


I Still repeat, as an actor, into my car, the words you teached to us..


And in the shower.. every morning..


 POSITIVE POSITIVE POSITIVE..


and the results are fantastic..


Now I’m also a coach for a female futsal team..


just in 3 weeks they become fifteen tigers…


THANK U PHILLIP..


THANK UUUUUUUUUUUUUU


U ‘re my real EXAMPLE.. il mio maestro..


I saw your web site.. very nice!!


( the italian version is funny.. there’s a lot of funny ( hypnotic..?! )


mistakes.. May I help U to translate??


I hope  I’ll come in London soon..


Ciao


GRAZIE 1000 X QUELLO CHE MI HAI DATO


( Thank U a lot for All U did 4 me! )


Piccolo Grande Super Phillip!!


Tanti Auguri a Te & Famiglia


Ciao

Categories
Travels

Nature in its raw – Snails Mating

By taking time, and looking about, allowing what we would not normally see, we will learn so much more.

Dr. Win Wenger calls it Side Bands. (click to read article). Stopping and notice noticing the small signals that often pass us by. Visit Project Renaissance,

Malcolm Gladwell in his book “blink writes about our senses which are telling us, giving us, information, but we do not recognize that this information is there influencing our decisions without us knowing. We do not notice noticing.

So as Win Wenger teaches, when something happens to us, it could be a change in our breathing rate, a sharp intake of breath, a quick glance to something. we should stop and recognize that something, what caught our attention, why did it catch our attention, notice noticing it and learn from it.

I call it Phillip’s Sausage. Being aware of what is in the peripheral vision or awareness. click to see article.

I had this experience some months ago in the UK when I noticed some strange ladybirds or bugs in the hedgerow outside the apartment in Norbiton Hall. They were Harlequin Ladybirds, (read Ladybirds the Answer), a newly introduced insect to the UK.
 

Harlequin Ladybirds

I was walking around the garden here in Bukit Mertajam, Malaysia, that I noticed a rather large snail shell, but it was something else that caught my eye. Something that I never seen before.


Snails Mating

There were in fact two snails, one on the back of the other and a strange white protrusion joining the two.

This is I realised something I had never witnessed before, the sex act of two snails. I had never considered how snails reproduced.

After a little research, I found the following facts.

Snails are what is called a hermaphrodite, that is they have both male and female sexual organs, or genital apparatus, and is located behind and to one side of the snails head.

Obviously, there is the requirement to have two snails to reproduce, and when one sexually active snail finds another, it will fire a calcified dart, (love dart), which will penetrate the other snail. This act will stimulate the other snail to receive and exchange the sperm sack or spermatophore to fertilise the eggs.

The eggs are produced internally, and about one month later, the snail will lay eggs (40 – 60), possibly underground, after which at about 14 days the eggs will hatch.

See and visit Strange Monster Creatures

Categories
Thoughts Travels

Santa did not call

Well Christmas Day has come and gone again.

Part of the family (over twenty) arrived for a Xmas feast in the evening, from babes in arms to the oldies, all tucked-in to so much food, we will be eating the left-overs for days to come.

But Santa did not come to my house. Perhaps it is because we have no chimney? No gifts. No wrapping paper. No unwanted socks. No clothes to take back to the shops to exchange for something more suitable.

Maybe, I might get a belated present one day when I get back to the UK, something I have wanted for a long time, slowly unwrapping, revealing that very special thing.

Well, actually I did come down to a special gift, left in my office.

Cat poo.

Being so hot and humid, the windows and doors are always open, but grills stop any intruders getting into the house.

It is a strange Malaysian custom for me, as most homes are like prisons, grills guarding every entry point, even every exit point, (is someone keeping me a prisoner?), inside the window or outside. I have even seen apartments at 20 floors with grills at the windows.


    
Grills inside and outside to stop intruders.

So the cat must have got in during the evening, and not realising an extra guest, the windows and doors were shut as we slept.

Poor thing, must have got hungry, and eat some of a bun called a kaya pau, steamed white dough with a wonderful jam filling (Kaya), and it could not have agreed with its’ stomach, because it left me with a present, loads of poo poo, runny diarrhea, smelly, and …….. I will not go on.

Not only had I the cat to clean up after, the floors to wash, but we have another overnight guest. A fruit bat.



Sorry too dark for my flash, but you can see the fruit bat’s eyes and shape

Every evening, fruit bat will come and hang from one of the porch wooden beams, and after getting a supply of wild fig or other fruit, will munch away, hanging there up-side-down. Within minutes it seems to come out the other end, landing on the car or floor tiles. It dries every quickly and is very difficult to remove.



Fruit bat droppings on the car

Like life, poo poo happens, (click to understand oh poo poo) just get on with it and have a laugh. (visit the ok.poo.poo web site for jokes)

Categories
Thoughts

Happy Chirstmas

Here in Malaysia is 8am, 25th December 2008, and it has just turned mid night in the UK, so Happy Christmas all my friends in the UK.



Happy Xmas

Categories
NLP

Our internal voice need to shut-up too

In my previous article I wrote about keeping your mouth shut , something I am doing more day by day.

But the more I think about what I wrote, the more I have thought that I should not have expressed what I said.

In the last twenty-four hours, I have thought about what I wrote.

Should I have said this?

Should I have said that?
 
What will people think?

I have had this internal dialog, an internal voice going on and on and on. It just would not stop. In NLP we will call this Auditory Digital, see Eye Accessing Cues.

The more I have thought about the previous article the more I have criticized myself, the more I have found fault in what I wrote, the deeper the hole I dug myself.

How often do we criticize ourselves? How often do we build mountains out of molehills? How often do we say to ourselves “I wish I had said this or that”, or “I wish I had done that”.

We keep talking to ourselves. More often than not, our own internal dialog is much longer than the actual incident. And, the incident, the history, never changes, but we make ourselves feel bad about it.

Not only do we talk to ourselves about the past, but we also talk to ourselves about the future. What can happen here, what can happen there. If I say this, then ……. If I do this, then ………

Often people with fears and phobias will practice the fear or phobia before the incident takes place, actually experiencing the phobia as if it was happening, not only experiencing it, but the more they talk to themselves about it, the worse it gets.

If I criticised you now about the style of clothes you were wearing, your hair cut, the food your eat, and I went on and on. What would you do to me? What would you tell me to do?

Yes. Go away, or words to that effect.

Yet we do it to ourselves. We go on and on and on, criticising ourselves, complaining about what we have done, what we shall or could be doing, and making ourselves worse.

Why do it?  Why make ourselves bad? Stop it. Stop that internal dialog.

One of the first cures the damaging internal dialog taking over our lives, is to realise that it is happening, that we are talking to ourselves, and then tell that voice to “SHUT UP“.

Change the voice in what it is saying, make it more positive.

Change the tonality. Make the voice into a sexy, sensual voice.

Change the voice into that of Micky Mouse.

Does the critical voice change and the results it produces change?

If that does not work, open the teeth slightly, and push the tip of the tongue between the teeth and bite gently.

What happens to the voice? It stops.

We have a saying in English when we should not have said what we have said, and that is :-

        “I wish I had bitten my tongue.”  meaning, “I wish I had said nothing.”

A third method of quietening that internal dialog is to push the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth, hard.

What happens to that voice now?

It is good to talk to ourselves, often it is the only voice that talks sense from all those other people around us giving us “best” advice. It is good to plan, to review our past, but when it takes over, makes things bad for us, we must tell it to


SHUT UP

Categories
English Sayings NLP Thoughts

Keep your mouth shut

There is a saying in English which says “keep your mouth shut“.

It is what it says, to stay quiet, not to say anything, to keep your thoughts to yourself.

Often it is the best medicine, the best thing to do, because you can “dig the hole deeper“, you can create situations, arguments which get worse and worse, driving the conversation deeper and deeper, entrenching people firmly into their beliefs.

I have found myself on many occasions where I have been in conversation, maybe in the training room, maybe in debates, and I have said something which I believe to be true from my experience, from my life, from my culture, from my religion, only to suddenly realise I have said something wrong, to person or persons I am in conversation with, who disagree with my ideas, as my understanding, my culture does not fit theirs.

It is time like this that I wish I had kept my mouth shut, not said what I did. For now I have upset someone.

But then sometimes, like a fool, I will “stick to my guns“, I will “stand my corner“, I will argue my case, defend my point of view. Not only do I defend my argument, but so does the person I am in conversation with stick with theirs.

What happens next? An argument ensues. People start to get upset, and the more upset they become the “deeper the hole gets“, the worse the argument gets.

I have lost count of the times I have entered a debate, a conversation, only to realise I should not be involved, because our views are so wide, our understandings, our beliefs, our cultures are so wide, that they will never, with all the good will in the world, merge.

I come across this sometimes in my courses. One participant is so anti the subject, does not believe that the subject is right, that the subject is against their morals and culture, that nothing I say is correct.

Why did they enroll on the course in the first place?

It is then that I will suggest that the person leaves the course, and I will refund their fees. (Subject to this occurring on the first day.)

Sometimes I get emails where I am attacked, because my, like others, methods of delivering the subject matter does not fit the ideals of the writer.

I will never win.

If I say black they will say white. If I say white they will say black.

If I say “I like that“, they will say “No, it is terrible“.

Then there are the people who always know better, have done better, been there or done more, always have the best solution, and there can be no other. They do not believe that others can have their point of view, beliefs or culture.

These people know the best restaurants, the best shops, the best way to get from one place to another. They will know which is the best product to buy, the best flower to plant in the garden, and if you say different, then you are in trouble.

I am aware of these people, and sometimes hear myself becoming one, and have to stop myself, to keep my mouth shut.

Yes, one should express a point of view, it should be everyones right, and it should be everyones right to be given that right to express an opinion, and have it that opinion considered.

But when it will lead to arguments, to bad feelings, rightly or wrongly, I will walk away, and keep my mouth shut.

Each and everyone of us will have our own “cat on the mat“, our own beliefs, ways of doing things, as we process information, go on that transderivational search, to make sense of our world.

The trouble is, some peoples cats are so big, they get so involved in their cat, that result is they can only see their cat, it obstructs the view of a big world of possibilities out there.



Our internal voice need to shut-up too