Andrew Henry is a 34 year-old UK Internet Marketing and Online Business consultant, and author dedicated to helping other find new ways to take their business and personal success to new levels. Andrew runs a website over at www.moneyandmotivation.com where he provides information, resources and advice to people while sharing power strategies for success.
In this article I’d like to share with you something that recently became clear after I attended a Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) workshop.
If you’re not familiar with NLP, one interpretation could be a system for modelling human communication and can be applied to your own beliefs and modes of communication (modalities), or to interpersonal communication.
For many people, just scratching the surface of NLP is enough to change their life.The aspect of NLP which addresses modelling other people’s communications refers to the way that you can elicit information about peoples preferred modalities. In other words, you understand the way they communicate and modify your own communication to be more ‘in-line’ with theirs to improve your results.
By asking them particular types of questions, and then assessing the language they use, their pitch, tonality, etc, you can appreciate how they communicate, and then package your own communication accordingly.
The non-verbal component of communication is larger than that presented by the words themselves (you’ve seen this, when someone tells you yes, but you know they mean no - because their whole body language disagrees with their words).
As you can imagine, if you could find out exactly how someone would need to receive your communication to give you the outcome you desired - this would be VERY useful (especially in a sales environment).
There are certain things that generally apply to non-verbal communication which you can use to get some information. These include such elements as the direction a person’s eyes move when answering a question (there’s a difference between when they’re recalling information or creating it), as well as pupil dilation and a host of other things.
Hopefully you can see how if a series of guided questions were asked, it might be possible to get quite a bit of information about they way a person communicates - and even if they’re telling the truth or not.
That’s right; they don’t need to say a word. You can even find out what their favourite colour is, which of any list of options they would choose - anything you want to know, you can find out without them speaking a word.
This requires that you be able to go into a more ‘peripheral’ state (being less focused and more aware of your surroundings) so that you are able to sense more of the non-verbal communication.
I did several exercises like this, all with great results. (I correctly identified 9 out of 10 answers as true or not, identified someone’s preferred animal, favourite colour - and you can do this with ANY information).
In my next article, I’ll let you in on how to get yourself into that state, and give you some hints about things you might notice.Following my last article where we discussed putting yourself into a more ‘open’ state in order to take in more of the non-verbal components of the world around you, this article will describe how you can achieve a more aware state of mind for yourself, and why you might want to.
You can use this exercise yourself or teach it to others. I’ve found it is particularly useful when listening to something you want to remember fully (children can also use this to pay better attention in class and remember the lesson more effectively).
1. The first thing to do is sit/stand comfortably, with your body relaxed.2. Focus your eyes on a point directly ahead and slightly above you.
3. As you stare at your chosen point, gradually become aware of (without moving your focus) the things around that point.
4. Gradually become aware of the area further and further out from your focal point, to the point where you’re aware of your entire peripheral vision (as far to the sides of you as you can), all the time keeping your focus on the original point you chose.
5. If you’re doing this to listen to someone and to increase your receptiveness or learning of what someone else is saying, bring your focal-point down to them while keeping your peripheral awareness.
This might feel strange when you first do it, but if you just go with it you should find that you take in more information than usual and that you are better able to access that information at a later date.
If you have a child who has trouble remembering how to spell, then getting them into a more aware state before teaching them can make a huge difference.
You’ll probably find that if you ask your child to spell a word, their eyes will move up and to the side while they try to recall the word and its spelling. Taking a card with the word(s) on and holding each card up in front of the child (as though you’re placing it where their eyes appear to be looking when they recall it) will help them access that information more easily and their spelling will often improve drastically.
If you spend a lot of time on your PC and often have trouble being creative when you need to write something, try this little exercise:1. Open up your word processor of choice.
2. Think of the subject you want to write about.
3. Turn off your monitor.
4. Then type for 5 minutes about whatever comes to mind about your chosen subject. You can select words that you must include (such as ‘excited’ ‘suspense’ and ‘pleased’, to give your subconscious some creative food).
5. After 5 minutes is up - turn on your monitor and see what you have written.This is often a fun and interesting exercise because it prevents you from watching the monitor and constantly interrupting your ‘flow’ to go back and correct spelling errors.
Have you ever decided that “enough’s enough!”, you’re going to knuckle-down and really start to do the things that you know will improve your life?
Maybe you’ve seen the opportunity for making money online and you’ve learned a bit about how to find what people want and where to get things to sell them. Then you’ve thought “That’s it, I’m going to spend x number of hours a week working on making extra money”?
Perhaps you’ve had a great idea for a new product and thought to yourself that lots of people would probably buy it if you had it manufactured and put into shops.
The world has never been so full of opportunity, and you’ve never been in a better position to be able to take advantage of those opportunities.
Having a PC and Internet access guarantees everyone the possibility of becoming rich.Yes, I do mean that!
Don’t believe me? That’s part of the problem.
I know it’s easy to say that making money is easy, and that anyone can do it. I’ve wondered about the reality of it myself, but here’s the thing - I AM making money online, every single day. And you can too.
If you’ve ever made a single dollar, then you already know you can do it.So why then isn’t everyone making loads of money online?
Let me answer that by asking you this. Why don’t overweight people eat healthy food and exercise regularly? They KNOW that’s all that’s required.
It doesn’t make sense does it? We know everything we need to do, yet we still don’t do what’s required.
Everything has a price and, if you’re not prepared to pay, you won’t get the results.
“What does this all have to do with the environment you mentioned in the title?” I hear you say.
Well let me share something with you that helped me change my life.
In previous articles I’ve covered the concept of the Map and the Territory and the fact that your external environment is something completely different to the internal environment you create for yourself. Hopefully we’re on the same page with this.
Changing either of those environments can have dramatic effects on your life.Here are some examples that have helped me:
External Environment
Remove distractions from the home work area: All games removed from the PC (the “I’ll just have a quick game” syndrome affected me for a long time).
Keeping my desk area tidy, and having things organised around me gives me a more productive attitude.Affirmation reminders: Having projects and goals on a board next to my PC means that I always know what I should be doing (although I was running late with this article because it wasn’t on the board).
Put EVERYTHING on the board!Lighting: Having decent lighting so that you’re not straining can make you more productive.
Equipment: Having the equipment you need (Printer, scanner, microphone etc..) ready and useable (no empty cartridges, lack of paper etc.) can help a lot.
No Television : Don’t try and watch television while you work you’ll distract yourself no matter how good at multitasking you are.
Internal EnvironmentJuicing-Up Your Internal Voice: Don’t settle for whiny little negative voices when you think about things. Replace those with a chorus of singers and an orchestra that announces to the world that you’re here and you mean business.
Worthiness: Don’t kid yourself that you’re not worthy of success, or that it couldn’t happen to someone like you. There’s more than enough success to go around.
Don’t Make Excuses: The main thing stopping you from having what you want are the excuses you make about why you can’t have them. You have 24 hours a day, just like everyone else. Don’t kid yourself that you’re special and you don’t have time to create success.
Can you see the difference combining these things could make to you?Can you feel the difference that taking control of your
environment(s) will have?
Give yourself permission to be disciplined.
Discipline is not a limiting thing. Not being disciplined and suffering a life of being less than you can be - that’s a limitation!
Take charge of your environment and watch the results. And let me know when things have improved.
In this article we’ll take the next step and look at the important principle of creating your own abundance by giving to others at every opportunity.
Henry Ford is famous for many insightful statements about creating success. Today we’ll refer to a particularly relevant one which concerns ‘giving’:
“The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.”
We could discuss just how this relates to delivering products and services to hungry markets, but I believe there’s a much more powerful lesson to learn from this statement.
Giving is not just an action, but a mindset.If you conduct your life from a mindset of giving, there’s an amazing side-effect of actually receiving far more than you give. What comes back may be in a different form than what you gave, but I believe that by giving you are putting yourself into the ‘flow’. You’re feeding good karma into an eternal system which has the sole purpose of magnifying and returning your good karma back to you.
I’m not talking just about business, sales, customers etc. This principle applies at every level of your life.Have you heard the expression “Smile and the world smiles with you”? Don’t wait to react to someone else’s smile - start your own and offer it to others. Whether it’s a smile you’re giving, some thanks to a friend (or to God), or you’re giving your best performance for your favourite sport or hobby - the more you give, the more you’ll receive.
As a short example, this week I was browsing one of my favourite online forums and I noticed a posting from a young guy who was trying to raise a couple of hundred dollars to buy a piece of software to help him build websites. Rather than complaining about the price, he’d gone to the trouble of putting together a package that he was selling to try and raise money for the software.
Since I get really pleased when I see people helping themselves, I respected his efforts and decided to buy him the software he was after. What I asked of him in return was that:
(a) he actually make a point of using the software (you’d be surprised how many people buy things online and never use them), and
(b) he take any opportunity that he gets to help other people in any way he can.At that point, I was happy. I’d helped someone out and asked him to pass that good karma on to someone else too.
But that same day I received a message from another of that forum’s users who’d seen my gesture and wanted to thank me by offering me something. Now I know I said karma comes around again, but wow! That was fast :)
This concept of passing-on goodwill is something I urge you to adopt in your life, and was encapsulated brilliantly in a film entitled “Pay It Forward”, which I recommend you watch if you get the chance.