Category: NLP

So by 15th February 1971, we had reprogrammed all our customers, and there had been no telephones or problems. We RELAXED.

So happy and impressed were the management and directors of NCR with the smooth decimalisation process, that they called us all down to the UK headquarters near Baker Street, (famous for Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson) in London.

I this big hall we sat looking up expectantly for the arrival of out esteemed leaders on the stage. They walked in, and took one look at us, and called for doctors, to examine us.

Due to the long hours, the stress, worry, the responsibility, we were diagnosed with depression, anxiety, fatigue, you name it we all had it, and the doctors asked us to open our mouths and we were feed, the Prozac, the uppers the downers, and we were sent away to our own doctors for treatment.

I hate using drugs, as happened yesterday with my migraine (see article). I saw an advertisement for a hypnotherapist practicing in my then home town of Nottingham. This surely is the better way.

I lay out on the couch in his third floor “office”, and closed my eyes as he talked to me and ramble on and on, saying nothing of any importance. 

What was going on?

Why was I not with Peter Pan in Never Never Land? 

Why hadn’t the lights gone out?

Surely I should have gone asleep, to be awakened “cured”?

Why did I know that the bus going passed three floors below was the number 19 to Mansfield with 6 passengers on board?

I was disappointed. This stuff cannot work surely? I did not go back.

Strange thing was, I did not need any tablets after that visit.

My mind was awakened to the power of hypnosis. (see web www.c4hypnosis.com)

To be continued.

For more than 35 years, I had been in a profession that perhaps was not the perfect one for me. I had worked with computer manufacturers, NCR, Sperry Univac, Texas Instruments, in a presales postsales role. This meant going into a potential customer, advising what the requirements are, recommending a solution, then creating or programming that solution, installing the computer hardware and software, training the customer, and looking after them after the installation.

I also worked for end users on their computers systems, redesigning and implementing new changes in software and hardware. Companies such as Associated Tyre Specialists (ATS), Peter Pan Playthings, The National Coal Board.

What ever needed to be done, I would do it.

It occurred to me that as I was designing the computer system, I was emulating what human being was doing. As they would write down an invoice amount in the ledger books, so I would have to do the same. I would follow a process, the strategy/s of the company’s employee, how they thought, how they processed information in their brain, how they worked.

On 15th February 1971, (is Phillip 94?), the UK went decimalised, they introduced decimalisation. Prior to this date, the UK had a very logical currency system. There were:-

      Pounds, Shillings and Pence
         
            12 Pennies equaled a Shilling
            20 Shillings equaled a Pound

      so there where 240 Pennies in a Pound.

The British understood the system, the same as we understand feet, inches and miles, pounds and ounces, and we drive on the correct side of the road.

In these early days of computers, there were no packages to run an application such as MS Word, Excel, Explorer, accounting, payrolls, etc. Each individual computer had its’ own programs written for it specific to the requirements, the way the individual company did things, their strategy. It was my job to do the writing of the programs. There were only a few people in the world, like me, who had the capability and knowledge.

The changeover on 15th February 1971, decimalisation, meant that each and every computer program had to be modified to:-

      100 New Pence to the Pound 

Not only that, but the existing values, balances held, would have to be converted :-

      £1.10.6d     equals      £1. 52.5 New Pence

and we had to be correct, any errors could bring a company down, finish them.

My fellow programmers at the computer manufacturer NCR, worked like Trojans, 48 hours a day.
 
At midnight of Saturday the 14th February, the converstion programs were run, and companies tested and ran their new programs.

All Sunday, we stood by our telephones, waiting for calls asking for help. But, nothing. We had done it.

To be continued. 

Every man and his dog has written a book.

Me too on memory, translated into Turkish by my good friend and translator Asuman Yildirim. Details of how you can obtain a copy will follow.

Perhaps this entry may become yet another offering on the book shelves, as many participants have asked me, where is your book?

Another question I am often asked is, what is NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming)? Perhaps during my writing this series of entries I can enlighten you, so that you can come to your understanding.

Day by day I hope to add an entry which may help you understand more about yourself, your friends, the world and NLP. Of how we interact with the world about us, our own world within, how we process information. Once understood, you will have have the power, the understanding to make changes in yourself and others.

My mission is to impart as much information to the world as I can, so like the co-founder of NLP, Richard Bandler, said once, to help make this world of ours a better place.

There is no substitute to actually attending a course on the chosen subject.

I, as a Certified Trainer of PhotoReading, have many people who attend the two and a half day course after having had purchased the book, never having implemented any of the vast amount of knowledge contained within it.

Learning is a whole body experience. You will learn by using your brain, your eyes, hearing, tastes smells, feelings and body. Your limbs, muscles, nerve endings your feelings. You learn by using all your senses, in NLP terms, all your modalities.

Attend one of my courses, and learn. Visit my web site www.nlpnow.net for more information and links to a vast amount of other information.

See a recommendation of my work. (click here).

I love technology.

If there is anything new, I have a urge, no desire to buy and use it.

I MUST have it.

Perhaps it is my inquiring mind, my days in the forefront of computing, perhaps it is that I am looking for solutions to solve or resolve issues and problems.

I am a great believer in VoiP (Voice over the internet Protocol). I often speak via Skype free of charge to relatives in Malaysia, friends in India, China, Italy, Canada and Turkey to discus business. I also use Skype to telephone landlines in many countries at greatly reduced rates.

The quality of VoiP is very good, the telecoms companies must change now to meet the challenge of this new technology, gone are the days when they would change very high charges for overseas calls. Mobile phone suppliers will also have to move soon to meet the challenge.

The problem with VoiP is that you need a computer switched on, hooked-up to the internet (broadband), which makes mobility, i.e. away from your desk a problem.

I have partially overcome this problem by having a mobile phone which can run Skype, and subject to being able to pick-up an free wireless internet connection, (Wi-Fi), I can make free or reduced rate calls to any part of the world from anywhere in the world.

A new product was launched by Skype, a Dualphone 3088.

This phone is connected wirelessly, via a base station, with a connection to the normal telephone line, so you can make and receive normal telephone calls. Also, the base station is connected to the internet. The telephone handset is like a computer in it’s own right, and runs Skype. No need to have a computer switched on.

This system worked well for one month, I was very pleased.

Then it stopped working.

I read the manual again. I reset the whole system. Reinstalled it. Rewired my computer layout. I did every thing I knew.

It was dead as regards making Skype calls, but OK for landlines. There was a big problem.

I decided to search the internet.

To my surprise, well not really, I find that this is a common fault with this Dualphone 3088, and has been an issue for a number of months, which is known by the manufacturer plus I would think by Skype.

Why do the manufacturer and Skype still sell this product when they know there is a very fundamental fault with the system, it breaks down.

Wait until the second generation or release.

Because technology is moving so quickly, new models, new ideas are rushed to the market before someone else gets there.

These inventions are often the brainchild of “techies”, they have a great idea, know how to create them, but have no idea of how they will be used by non technical thinking people, and how to test them in a non laboratory environment, that is the home of the end user.

I think the strategy some people take is to wait until the technophobs like me have tested them out, found the faults, which are then incorporated into new releases of the product.

It also means the product often is sold more cheaply.

Will I ever learn? No.

Trainings

I have noticed that over the years, new concepts and new ideas are launched in the field of training.

Often these new ideas are re badged, or old ideas or courses given a new name.

Having had attended some of these courses, or listened to presentations on the courses, I sit there and ask myself what planet do these people come from. There is no content in what they are doing, no value that can be taken away.

Then I listen to trainers who have been training a long time, seen a lot of water flowing under the bridge, had loads of experience, updated themselves and the courses with new ideas and concepts.

Unlike new trainers to the field, the old ones can bring into the course experience, knowledge of having done the work, implemented it, found the faults, and been able to resolve these.

Ask questions of other users of systems before buying. Ask only those who have used.

Read between the lines, as often people tell you things that they have heard from others second hand.

How often have I heard that hypnosis is dangerous. When asked, have you ever been hypnostised, they will say, NO. How do they know? Someone told them.

Remember, we only see things at the surface level.

We delete, distort, and generalise information as we are overwhelmed by information. (Miller 7 /-2).

Although totally frustrated now, I will have a break a holiday, get back to the issue and resolve it, and have satisfaction, then to have a good nights sleep.

I attended a lunch meeting of the Southside Chamber of Commerce in London, held in The Bankside Restaurant, 32 Southwalk Bridge Road, London, owned by a member. Quite a large restaurant, with modern furniture, with leather seats, clean wooden tables high class and tasteful. The waitress’s were cheerful and helpful. The menu, printed on the printed place mat, gave a good choice of four courses, Good British food.

I had a wonderful soup, and for the main course, Cumberland Sausage, mashed potatoes, crispy fried onions, and a lush gravy. A British meal at last. But too much for me, as I try to loose more weight that will mean no dessert.

I have been a member of the Chamber for a number of years, and in that time have made many presentations to the group on subjects I teach NLP, memory skills etc. It is fun to be reminded many years later that someone can still remember one of the strategies I taught them.

I love my job.  

Although a small turnout, it is a time to network, talk to people, relax.

One member had lived and worked in the area I was born and brought up in, in the Midlands of the UK, Chasetown and Lichfield, a place I had left over thirty years ago, but still retaining a slight accent of the area.

I will not loose my Midlands accent, it is my individualism that I take with me.

Another member, a lawyer, had just retired from the British Government’s Home Office, now wondering what should the next move be in his working life.

A member I had never spoken to before sat next to me, and we exchanged details of ourselves.

I transpires that in a way he was having a similar career path as myself. Although younger than me, I could see him taking the same road I took.

Not being an academic, I was an artist, I loved making things, a hands-on man, I was forced or coerced, after the normal school leaving age, to follow an education in commerce, law, accounting, statistics at the Staffordshire College of Commerce. I did not really enjoy this experience, in fact I did not like accounting, statistics meant nothing to me.
 
On leaving college, with my certificates in my hand, I was maneuvered into the very early days of computers.

The first computer I worked on in 1966, a Leo, one walked into a large room which contained the processor, made-up of flashing electric valves. As you walked down the middle of this array of lights, you could touch and watch the bits and bytes being shuffled around the memory as it took I think five minutes to add 1 + 1 to come up with the answer 3.

My career journey had begun with computers. For many years I worked with computer manufacturers, NCR, Sperry Univac, Texas Instruments, producing solutions on the computers to customers requirements, accounting, payrolls, stock keeping, hotel management, retail. I was an expert. The expert.

In 1988 after a long stay in the Middle East as Software Manager with Texas Instruments, I returned to the UK to find (after a rest) a new job.

I had really never had to search for work, after all, I was good, I was an expert, I was often “head hunted” for new positions.
 
Now jobs were not there. No one wanted me.  Nobody loved me.

Why?

Ok, I did not have a degree, a process I was to undertook in the late 1990’s at Brunel University, but I had all the knowledge, I had been at the forefront of discovering and working with new technologies. Why?

Age. That was the answer.

I was too old. Computing is a young persons game. The owners, the managers who interviewed me were all younger than me. Perhaps I was a threat to them.

But I have so much to offer, and someone saw what I had, employed me, and I became an expert in the computerised replacement window, door and flat glass manufacturing sector.

For a number of years I helped and advised companies in the computerisation of the processing of windows, doors and flat glass units. With friends, we formed our own company, but the down turn of the British economy of the early 1990’s saw the company end.

With all my expertise, still nobody loved me, nobody wanted my knowledge, I applied for hundreds of jobs. Not even getting an interview. 

Employment agencies used me to help the other unemployed get jobs, paying me in postage stamps and blank paper for me to print my large CV.

That is when I did my own thing, got off my bum, and offered my expertise to small to medium sized companies to run their computer sites, supply their hardware and software, make sure their sites and staff were fully operational. 

Still I was not happy.

That is when I came across NLP, Hypnosis, with Paul McKenna and Richard Bandler et al. I loved this new information. I needed more and more. 

After a couple of years, I had had enough of the rat race, travelling each day into Central London, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus, trying to compete with the young whiz kids, just out of school, “knowing everything” about computers, (Gameboy). I told my clients I had had enough.

Thus my journey in training, consulting, coaching phobia cures.

To this day, I am researching for more knowledge I can place in my portfolio to train others. 

I go to the originators of whatever I want to learn, and get their approval to teach their work.

Yet, I come across many people who have had similar experiences to me and employment. They do not work, they blame the government, society, the ageism immigration, anything but themselves.

Poo Poo happens. It is said that we will have to re-educate ourselves every six years, as knowledge and technology is moving so quickly, if we do not move with it, we will have no jobs.

I hope the member of the Southside Chamber, like me and you, updates with new knowledge, not to sit back and hope we have a job for life.

Life evolves, let us evolve too, and learn to learn.