Time for some annecdotal research.

We’re interested in sharing in your joy/sorrow/confusion. Please share your good/bad/ugly experiences in applying NLP in your business, personal relationships, or anywhere else you have used something you’ve read/heard/watched. (Please refrain from telling other people’s stories unless you were directly involved on the receiving end or observed it first hand.)

All stories welcome from oneliners to the novellas. As you feel lead to share more you can include your background in NLP (voracious reader, client, courses taken, influential trainers, etc), and more context of the situation. A quick way to share context is to set up what the situation was leading into your use of your particular ”magic NLP dust”, your immediate observations upon your ‘’sprinkling”, and observations on that situation in later interactions. Or before, after & after-the-after as @RayEdwards so eloquently puts it.

Please share stories in the comments below, @WayneBuckhanan on twitter , WayneBuckhanan on facebook , or WayneBuckhanan @ gmail. Please note whether you’d prefer to stay anonymous or be quoted.

Thanks in advance for sharing your expertise — everyone is an expert at being themselves!

This week has been an odd confluence of disparate ideas from my Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube friends all leading in the same direction. Here is summary and pointers. The full story and a cool bonus (think MnM) is going out to my email subscribers tomorrow night.

Talent

Had a great exchange with my friend Matt Harris sparked by his comment “talent so often gets in the way of success.” The whole scoop is in the email. Until then check out Matt’s blog post about it and follow @MeridianMogul on Twitter.

Insecurity

Thanks to my friend Nicola Cairncross, author of The Money Gym, for this post “Insecurity Doesn’t Pay the Bills” by Dave Navarro as shared via her new @NicolaCairnX Twitter account.

Inspiration

My new friend Gail Lynne Goodwin added to the theme with a tweet “Do you hold back your dreams wondering “what will people think”? Who cares! It’s your dream, it’s your life- go live it#IMT”
Check out the inspirational quotes she has been collecting first hand and follow @InspireMeToday on Twitter.

Experiments

My 5 minutes x 30 days post started the public accountability on my 30 day experiment around my kettlebell throwing. Scott Young calls them “30 day trials” but I much prefer the kinesthetics of “30 day experiment” — much more mad scientist!
The last 3 days I’ve hit my momentum goal with a few (1-3) clean and presses. Not what most would consider spectacular, but they are exactly fulfilling the habit forming part of this MnM goal.

So, that’s pretty much been my week online (taken in quick breaks between all of the usual PhD and family stuff). Check out some links, do something with them, and share your results below.

P.S. If you want the extra stuff in the future sign up to receive updates and announcements via email over there ->.

Quickly, what is your goal for April?

For many that is an odd question. ”What do you mean? Goals for April? I don’t have any goals for today, let alone this month.” If that’s you I’ll be a tough mentor: either go use a goal setting guide or wallow somewhere else because this post/blog/universe isn’t going to help you until you’ve got some goal in mind.

For those who are still reading, is that goal talking about where you’re going or what you’re doing along the way? This is the difference between an outcome and a process goal.

Either one will be much more likely to occur if it follows the NLP criteria for a well formed outcome: positively stated, individually driven, sensory based, and ecological.

Is your goal focused on what you do want or what you don’t want? What you want to have or what you want to no longer have?

Does your goal depend upon the actions that you take or is it in the hands of other people or circumstances?

Do you know what it will look like when you reach your goal? What will you hear? What sensations do you feel? Smells? Tastes? Or will you ”just know”?

What unintended consequences will reaching your goal have? Who else will be impacted? What things will or won’t happen because of you reaching your goal?

All of these ”criteria for well formed outcomes” also apply to process goals. Are you focused on what you will be doing as you move forward? Did you change an outcome to a process goal so you could focus on what is in your control? Do you know what maintaining your process goals will look/sound/feel/taste/smell like? Are the unintended consequences of the way you’re doing things acceptable for everyone?

Today’s mission is to double check your 30 day experiment goals against these four criteria. If you need to change an outcome to a process goal then make those adjustments. Now share your outcome or process goal for the month below for feedback, support, and public accountability. (Yes, that means you too Sarah!)

FYI: I maintained my momentum with two aborted Turkish get-ups (only ‘bell on hand was too big!), 10 swings with good form, and a solid snatch for good measure.

Now go do your something and report back!

Today is day two in a personal 30+ day experiment. I was recently reminded of 30 day experiments by Scott Young’s prompting.

Basically I have set a short term goal of finite duration with well formed outcomes and well formed process goals. This particular experiment is to (re)develop my exercise routine. I’m dedicating myself to throwing kettlebells every day for 30 days as my momentum goal.

Oh, wait. I don’t think I’ve publicly talked about MnM goal setting (nothing to do with the candy!). Hmmm, I think I’ll save that for a later post. Today is about 30 day experiments.

For this experiment my nada goal is a daily 3 minute warm up, 100 swings in 5 minutes with a 16 kg ‘bell, and 8 brocades as my ”cool down” afterwards. The monster for this experiment is 100 snatches with 24 kg in 15 minutes.

Yesterday I did 100 swings @ 16 kg in about 5 min with a Tabata style cadence: 10 swings in (approximately) the 20 seconds maximally active then 10 seconds rest. Grip it, rip it, and repeat. I did about 3 minutes of stretching/loosening before diving into the swings and just walked it off while catching my breath afterwards.

Today I was still feeling the little aches that tell me my swing form wasn’t ideal so I decided to do cleans instead (to at least distribute the aches across a few new locations!). Similar deal as the swings: 10 cleans as fast as I could (approx 20 seconds), 10 seconds rest, 10 cleans w/other arm, 10 seconds rest. I doubt I’ll be doing that exact sequence again because my hands were getting torn up by the poorly designed handle on the adjustable ‘bell I was using. (I either need to round out the handle or wait for my Kiwi friend to come back to the states so I can test one of my other adjustable kb handles I loaned out.)

What does all this girevik geekery mean for the non-RKCs? It means public accountability. I wouldn’t bother making up this level of detail if I hadn’t done it. It also gives you a chance to see how small the commitment can be (less than 10 minutes a day so far) and still have significance.

Your mission for today is to choose an area of your life where you’re willing to run a 30 day experiment — health, relationships, money, learning, etc and share it in the comments below. Tomorrow we’ll talk about well formed outcomes and process goals so you can run a 30 day experiment through April.

If you aren’t testing anything you should start…NOW.

Whether you are simply testing a new driving route or a different brand of soap your brain (and by extension your body) need new stimuli. Desensitization or over-sensitization happens when you always have the same thing for dinner. This applies to your thoughts too.

I have seen unattributed statistics that at least 90% of the thoughts we have today are the same as we had yesterday. (This may be where people come up with 21, 30, or 45 days to change habits, but that’s a post for another day.)

Where might you be desensitized in your thought process?
Where might you have developed an overly sensitive pattern in your thoughts?
What new thing are you going to do (and think!) today?

FYI: I’m testing a new tool for posting to this blog. It allows me to write posts on my phone which removes a ton-and-a-half of excuses. Watch for more posts!

It’s been rather quiet around Life, Love, & Learning lately. Mostly because I’m head down writing on my PhD proposal.

So this will be a quick note to let you know that soon and very soon we’ll be releasing another volume of Age of Conversation. Once again I submitted a chapter and all the profits will be going to charity.

And without further ado my co-authors:

Read the rest of this entry »

This time of year naturally lends itself to reflection and refocus.
My 2009 was … scattered. Looking back an unspoken theme might have been ”Stalled” or ”Distractable” — neither of which was highly desirable.

My chosen theme for 2010 is ”Finish w/Intensity”!

And my 5 minute timer just went off, so I’m calling this finished (with intensity) and headed back to work.

You can still take a moment to reflect and share your theme for 2010.
See you next year!

Here it is again — a chance to put a huge community of creators behind you pushing, pulling, and applauding you on!

What other benefits are people getting? A new or improved habit of producing content every day. The split between writing and editing (November is writing, editing commences no sooner than December 1st!). The beginnings of a novel (duh!) that could be the difference between being simple you and author you!

What is the first step? Public declaration!
Go to your facebook, myspace, blog, or bulletin board near the water cooler and announce your intent. You will be surprised at how much support you’ll get. What about those energy vampires who want to push themselves up by pushing you down? Turn it around and allow those comments to encourage you to write more. Remember, it is sheer quantity — not quality — and no-one can judge beyond word count!

Any other excuses? Oh yeah. “I don’t want to start because I might not finish.” Take the 50k words “destination goal” and turn it into a personal “process goal” where you are more concerned with writing something daily and/or writing more each day than you did the day before.

Post any other excuses below and I’ll help reframe them so you can start NaNoWriMo’ing today!

As I mentioned in the 54321 post, pacing and leading is a method for connecting with someone and then gently influencing their path. We do it all the time, whether we realize it or not!

My son is just learning to feed himself and while my wife is generous with handing him utensils and dealing with the carnage I am more reserved in this area. (Maybe I’m too antsy about the boy stabbing the table with his fork, maybe I’m rarely ambitious enough to encourage activities that lead to the full cleanup that oatmeal and honey smeared in the hair requires.)

So, I tend to keep control of the spoon and bowl and expect him to “baby bird” for a mouthful. Almost every time he closes his mouth on the spoon I notice that I’d been holding my mouth open just like him. Pacing at it’s finest.

Here’s the tricky question: who is pacing and leading whom? Am I opening my mouth because I am encouraging him to do so (which is the story I tell myself) or am I opening my mouth in response to him opening first?

Vote below and maybe I’ll take a video and we can analyze who opens first!

My wife (and 4 year old daughter) love to watch The Biggest Loser. I am vaguely interested late in the season when the character transformations are really taking hold in the people I consider the “real winners” (independent of pounds lost). Until then all I get are post-hypnotic suggestions to eat. (Tonight it was ice cream when it aired and sandwiches at 10:30pm when my wife re-watched the end!)

My wife knows that I love kettlebell training so she has mentioned that they’ve used ‘bells on Biggest Loser. Now, I have never been a gym rat but kettlebell training has been the only form of strength training that I have ever stuck with beyond the learning stage. (I’ve got Heidi and Zar at Firebellz to thank for getting my momentum working out and a solid foundation in technique!) Meanwhile, back at the ranch, reality TV demonstrates less than stellar form while using ‘bells.

Normally I would shrug it off as the effects of media on the “real world” except that one of my friends, who is a new RKC (kettlebell trainer), has been venting every Tuesday night about how horrid Jillian’s kettlebell swings are, etc. Again, I agree that it shines a poor light on kettlebell training, but it wouldn’t typically stick with me for any length of time.

Enter another facebook friend who posts this evening “Tip: online trainers that mock the biggest loser or the trainers. You’re not advancing yourself/name, you just look stupid.” Ironically, I “liked” this just after “liking” the first friend’s post (”you want to see how NOT to train?  watch the Biggest Loser tonight”).

Now, it got me thinking about eating nutritious foods. Not the usual “I should eat more healthy food” that I hear from friends. No, I started thinking about my friend Scott Tousignant’s claim that it is cheaper to eat good food than not. My initial reaction was “BS!” — until I read more of what he was saying. He was taking people from eating fast food continually to cooking some lean foods at home. Okay, I concede that eating at home is less expensive than eating out while also being more health conscious. My reaction was going from cooking our primarily vegetarian meals to minimizing processed flours and sugars, eliminating high fructose corn syrup, using produce grown without pesticides, and getting fresh foods as straight from the farm as possible. From my starting point I called BS because getting organic foods at the grocery store is much more expensive than the chemical coated stuff. We both were correct, we just each had different starting points!

I believe The Biggest Loser is similar. Taking people from “remote control curls” to finding out how far they can push their bodies in the gym is a huge accomplishment (especially the ones that manage to do it without whining!). Taking 250-450lb people and getting strength training equipment in their hands is a good start.

That does not mean the people who are wanting to lose 20lbs are going to find Biggest Loser useful. These are people who need to learn safe, solid techniques so they can have an intense workout and be able to go to work the next day. (And sure, we can understand the trainer having issue with someone misusing their tool of choice. And it doesn’t help that it’s a public figure who is marketing a branded version of that tool. However, you don’t see Bob Vila getting upset over someone misusing a hammer. But that’s an argument for another day.)

What this is really about is knowing the context in which each of these behaviors is most appropriate. When you tie in knowing where you are now (present state/context) and knowing where you want to be (your desired state/context) then you can make informed decisions.

Where do you stand on The Biggest Loser? Share below.

P.S. You’ve got to love the opportunity we are given to analyze the changes in contestants’ language patterns as they progress in their journey. Or am I the only one tracking that?