Here is short video I found that gives a simple but effective overview of the different personality traits of the dark triad
This is to draw your attention to these personality traits so that you can be more aware of why people behave in the way that they do. This can help develop coping strategies once you understand these personality traits.
NLP is a model of how we communicate with ourselves and others based on the information we receive from the external world. Each person will interpret and experience the this differently according to our internal filters
As human beings when we receive this information when will do the following automatically:
Deletion occurs when we selectively pay attention to specific aspects of our experience and not others. We may even overlook or omit others. Without deletion, the human psyche would be faced with way too much information. The concept of deletion helps us cope in a world where we are constantly overloaded with information.
2. Distortion
Distortion occurs when we misrepresent reality by making a shift in our experience of sensory data. In Indian philosophy, there is a well-known story of distortion with the rope and snake analogy. In the story, a man is walking along the road when he sees what he thinks is a snake. Upon further inspection, he realises it is really only a piece of rope
3. Generalization
Finally, comes the idea of generalisation. This occurs when we form a global conclusion based on only one or two experiences. You may even know someone who has one experience and forms an opinion about all similar experiences?
Generalisation is one of the ways in which we learn. We take in information and draw broad overall conclusions about the meaning.
So, the real question is, when two people have the same stimulus, why do they not have the same response? The answer is because we delete, distort, and generalise the information from the outside that comes in from our senses based on one of five filters. The filters of the NLP communication model are:
The first of the NLP filters is something known as the Meta program. Knowing someone’s Meta program can help you clearly and closely predict people’s states, and therefore predict their actions and behaviours. One important thing to note about Meta programs is they are not good or bad; they are just the way someone handles information.
The next filter is beliefs. Beliefs are those generalisations about how the world is. Beliefs are the assumptions that we have about the way the world is that either create or deny personal power to us.
Values are what people typically move toward or away from. They are basically our attractions or repulsions in life. They are our deep, unconscious belief systems about what’s important, and our values can change with context too.
The fifth filter is the decisions that we have made in the past. Decisions may create new beliefs or they may just affect our perceptions through time. The problem with many decisions is that they were either made either unconsciously or at a very early age and are forgotten. However, the effect is still there.
The fourth filter is our memories. In fact, a number of psychologists say that the present plays a very small part in our behaviour. Some psychologists believe that as we get older, our reactions in the present are more and more just reactions to gestalts or collections of memories that are organised in a certain way of past memories.
‘To effectively communicate, we must realise that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.’
~ Tony Robnins Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement.
Here is a list of books I have read in the last 5-6 years that may be of interest to you.
A fantastic read from Tony Robbins that I have read a couple of times. The underlying concepts in the book are on NLP. It is a simple yet very powerful read that will take you on a journey of self-discovery and how you can empower yourself to take action and make some personal improvements
This is the follow up to “Unlimited Power”. A brilliant book that is also incredibly immersive
The first personal development book I read. It’s a great book that teaches you how to analyse and embrace fear and face it.
First published in 1959, David J Schwartz’s classic teachings are as powerful today as they were then. Practical, empowering and hugely engaging, this book will not only inspire you, but it will also give you the tools to change your life for the better
Great book for coaches and has a strong focus on how to question effectively instead of giving advice. One of the coaching principles is that people have the resources to resolve problems themselves. The coach’s questioning helps the client find the answers.
I’ve always wondered what makes people change job in a relatively small period of time and why the change involves taking a similar role at a different company?
This was something I also have participated in during my technology career for various reasons which include the following:
Sometimes the opportunity being offered does not meet your expectations
People dynamics and working relationships are a key part of being successful. It is very hard to be successful without the contributions of others. When the chemistry between people and teams is toxic it often ends with a few casualties with short term retention of staff.
Conflicting interests within departments or an organization can quickly create silos and a lack of co-operation.
One of our most basic requirements in the workplace is to be valued, recognised and rewarded according to our efforts and accomplishments. Sometimes, our ego can get in the way of these basic needs where we seek the need for ‘significance’
Burnout is not uncommon and sometimes we need to change something in order to regain balance and perspective about our life. Job or role changes do not necessarily mean the grass is greener on the other side so take time to pause and reflect and make a rational decision about your future
More people today have some integration with social media, and this creates a level of peer pressure to appear more virtuous, driven and successful. This is often a false reality and is misunderstood about what it means to be fulfilled in life.
It is a natural part of life to grow and sometimes we outgrow a role, job or association with an organisation or even people. This can feel uncomfortable especially if we are not consciously aware of the change that is happening.
I became more consciously aware of my own actions when I started seeing similar patterns on social media platforms like LinkedIn. I observed many people changing the company frequently for the same job roles and I often considered the following things:
When we feel like we are ‘stuck’ or are no longer fulfilled we need to look at how to evolve and re-invent ourselves to regain a sense of meaning or purpose in our lives. We need to take control of this process and do something to reshape the landscape of our life.
It is often visible to observe people in the workplace who no longer motivated by their work, lack passion or have natural energy. People often become frustrated in their working environment and have a range of emotions that they may not fully understand and become unresourceful.
There is nothing wrong with this, this can be for many a natural occurrence in life based on your life stage and circumstances. The key point is to recognize the emotions we experience as a call to action. The emotion is telling us something if we listen carefully.
Instead of getting frustrated by the working environment and feeling that it controls you, take some action by asking yourself some empowering questions:
When we take action to change ourselves everything, we experience also changes based on the decisions we make.
I have added some resources below:
The Status Game – Will Storr
Selfie – Will Storr
“The capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.”
Emotional intelligence is the key to both personal and professional success
A quick, but by no means a comprehensive coverage of the subject but this should give some insights into the mind and emotional intelligence.
EI is the balance mainly between 2 types of intelligence:
There are several other types of intelligence that will influence EI:
Existential Intelligence
Kinaesthetic Intelligence
Linguistic Intelligence
Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
Musical Intelligence
Naturalist Intelligence
Spatial Intelligence
Our brain in simple terms, is divided up into 3 areas
Classic conditioning is the process of how the brain naturally responds to stimulus and based on the repetition of the outcome that happens as a direct result.
Operant conditioning occurs when behavioural patterns are reinforced through rewards (dopamine) or weakened due to a negative consequence. This may depend on how often conditioning is occurs and how it is being reinforced.
Emotional hijacking is where the amygdala responds to stimulus, overriding the thinking or logical part of the brain. The amygdala is emotional and has some emotional memories attached. The hijacking can occur for a number of reasons. We may stored, faulty experiences, memories or belief systems. Specific types of stimulus can trigger these previous experiences, memories or learned belief systems that may not actually be the reality.
Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers in the body that transmit signals from nerve cells. There are 3 common neurotransmitters with specific functions.
See the following videos from Simon Sinek on neurotransmitters and how this affects mental health
Simon Sinek: We’ve raised a generation on dopamine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEpogM_fxsQ
Simon Sinek – The Good Life Chemistry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wJoeSXuD6I&t=75s
I love learning, but I had to become aware of my primary learning style. I’ve always appreciated reading books however I often found it hard work sitting down and trying to read books cover to cover so I looked at some alternative options to improve the experience
I like using audiobooks, I can simply do this anytime I’m in the car, doing those necessary but uninspiring tasks around the house. This was a great way to accelerate my knowledge, I can then choose to focus on a specific area of research if something resonates with me.
There are many options today for Audiobooks and also options for using Audio even if the book or text does not come in audio format.
Microsoft Edge Browser:
The Edge Browser comes with surprisingly good natural voice that is directly built in and can be used with quite a number of websites
You can use the voice functionality with both the existing web page or you can use the immersive reader that is built in to make the text feel more like a book.
Immersive Reader and Read aloud
Google Play Books:
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Read aloud.These 2 options have significantly enhanced my ability to immerse myself in books to read at an incredible speed.
One of the reasons I love digital books is that I can highlight and make notes in the book and I can then reference them at a later date. This is great especially is something resonates with you.
I hope these tips help you
A couple of years ago I was given one of Tony Robbins’ audio programs, Personal Power II. This was received when the in-person UPW event was cancelled in April 2020 and was replaced with a virtual offering the following year.
This is a fantastic program if you are interested in taking your first steps into the world of personal development.
“Personal development consists of activities that develop a person’s capabilities and potential, build human capital, facilitate employability, and enhance quality of life and the realization of dreams and aspirations.[1][better source needed] Personal development may take place over the course of an individual’s entire lifespan and is not limited to one stage of a person’s life. It can include official and informal actions for developing others in roles such as teacher, guide, counselor, manager, coach, or mentor, and it is not restricted to self-help. When personal development takes place in the context of institutions, it refers to the methods, programs, tools, techniques, and assessment systems offered to support positive adult development at the individual level in organizations“
The concepts of this program are incredibly simply, addictive and incredibly effective. The program is designed to be taken over 30 days and each day has multiple sections but are no longer that 15 minutes. This layout ensures even people with the busiest of schedules can adopt an approach that will allow them to digest this material and give you some useful insights and perspectives.
Pain vs Pleasure
Pain and pleasure are the guiding forces of our lives
People will do more to avoid pain then gain pleasure
Role Models
Identify people who are already getting the results you want and find out how they achieve this by modelling.
Sensory Acuity
When you are looking to create an outcome or result be aware of what is not working and change your approach until you get the result you want.
Role models are people who are
Neuro Associative Conditioning
Neuro association defines our behaviour.
This is when we link meaning to a particular behaviour and this defines if we try to avoid pain or gain pleasure.
Examples:
Losing weight – Some people may associate pain to losing weight because this will mean giving up specific food or working out more
Some people however will associate more pain to staying over weight and will take action to make themselves healthier
Career Change – Some people will associate more pain to change career because they may need to seek new qualifications, make sacrifice existing commitments to focus on changing career.
Some people however will associate more pain to staying in the existing career then changing
What stops people following through?
Fear stops people following through and as they associate failure and rejection or believe it’s too much hassle or not a good use of time.
Learning how to change our associations to what we link pain and pleasure is key to how we define our lives.
There are a number of audio programs that Tony Robbins has published
If you have not done this program, I hope this may of given you a small insight.
This year I was very privileged to have been in the company of a person with terrific business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset who is doing incredible things in their life, work and business.
When the word “entrepreneur” is used, we often think of some of the very successful people like Elon Musk or Richard Branson but these people are generally outside of our proximity so it was good to have got some knowledge and insights from an aspiring entrepreneur.
I was introduced to the concept of the Knowledge Industry and Personal Branding. I quickly started reading books, participating in some courses in preparation to do Project Next, hopefully in 2022
Below are some courses and books I have recently completed as part of some of my preparation to doing Project Next.
These courses below should give you a good introduction on business and personal branding. Pluralsight requires a paid subscription to access these courses
Business Basics
Developing Your Personal Brand
Creating and Selling a Digital Product
I’ve listened to the books below on audio during the last month, they are insightful, full of simple but effective strategies for anyone that wants to start building their personal brand
The Underdog Advantage
Millionaire Success Habits
Think Big: Make It Happen in Business and Life
The Magic of Thinking Big
Here are some great tools below to build visuals for your social media and personal brand, there is a mix of free and paid offerings
I hope these tools and courses help
Over the last couple of years I’ve taken an interest in coaching and mentoring and becoming engaged with some continuous professional development (CPD) certification with some topics on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Coaching & Mentoring and some aspects of Mental Health.
I’ve had a strong focus on technology for the last 20 years and invested (and still do) a lot of time and dedication to continually develop in this area, which is challenging because everything changes all the time. If you speak to anyone in the industry they will probably tell you how tough it is with the continuous evolution and a daily level of uncertainty about which challenge your organization may be presented with. You might be just trying to keep the lights on or embracing new technology to keep ahead of your competitors.
I was introduced to NLP a few years ago and some aspects of it were intriguing and insightful although not every aspect of the mechanics resonated with me personally. This eventually led to discovering Tony Robbins and reading his books, listening to his audio programs and content available on YouTube. I wouldn’t go as far to say “life changing”…..well certainly not yet, but it has given me some new perspectives and also some renewed energy and passion for a subject I would simply of never considered as being particularly useful.
NLP is referred to as the “psychology of excellence” and can be used as a tool for personal development amongst some other uses although it is debated how useful some of the strategies and techniques are. Some of areas of the training are interesting, such as how a person’s perception of the world is shaped by their experiences and how it creates a “mental map“. This will be different for each person and highlight that our perceptions are often not reality, also known as “the map is not the territory“, see the links below:
What Is NLP? | Neuro Linguistic Programming | NLP Academy
Since taking some of the CPD courses on the Center of Excellence I’ve then become more interested in the psychology aspects and decided to invest more time into learning and developing counselling and coaching skills as part of my own personal development. Some of the training programs I am currently undertaking are as follows:
Personal Power II
A core audio program delivered by Tony Robbins
Unleash the Power Within (UPW)
Due to COVID, I’ve only got the option to currently do this as a virtual event but the coaching discussions should be quite enlightening.
RMT Core 100 Training
This a life coaching course that has been developed by a number of coaches. There are 100’s of lectures and coaching videos plus live coaching calls and practice sessions. You also get benefits such as a coach acceleration course and resources to help you get started as a coach. Most of the materials are available for life, the live sessions only for 6 months. There is no time limit on the course and with a college degree you can be awarded a BCC
I’ll be adding some more blogs on coaching and mentoring as I start to get more insights to share.
TheProgressiveLifeCoach 