Shifts Work

This is a podcast version of a workshop on how to focus on the strengths in other people when those people are making it difficult. What can you do when you go into a conversation hoping for the best and find yourself being sucked into irritation or anxiety or confusion? Stop looking at the problems and start focusing on strengths. This podcast will walk you through three ways to do that.

This isn't about leaning on your friends, and it's not about choosing friends that you could lean on. It's about going into every interaction ready to find something you need to think better or feel better. This is a condensed version of our 90 minute workshop, so be prepared to press pause and think a little in between exercises.

It's crucial for managers, for parents, for teachers and for coaches: all of them need to have conversations that allow other people to take ownership of their problems and of their ability to make the choices they need to make. Learn the three key steps to engaging in a way that leads to the moment when you affirm that someone has the power they need to make a choice.

Linda explores the three steps from knowing there is something you need to learn through the risks of beginning, to the moments when you put what you learn to work in the world. 

Three important ideas for using negatives better:

1) Uncover the benefits of starting with what you don't want

2) You need to match other people (with a negative) before you can get them to shift to a positive

3) The brain naturally weighs loss more than gain; it takes an effort to focus on the positive (when you start with a negative, you can lend someone some of your willpower so they can make a shift)

The final episode in our series on the core skills taught in the NLP Practitioner course. On their final day, our practitioners apply everything they have learned to three fundamental activities: learning, collaboration and influence. The point of all of them is the same: to engage with difference so that we move beyond individual limitations to feel better and achieve more. 

How do you build a communication? The elements of structure involve setting things up so that what happens next will be useful. Understanding how many different parts are at work in a conversation can be intimidating, but that's why we do this on day 7 of the practitioner training. By then, you're learning to commit to your outcomes and use the immense processing power of your brain and body to drive results that will satisfy you.

Have you ever been in a conversation that went horribly wrong? Understand the fear of shame, conflict and consequences and flip it around so that your language supports connection, collaboration and clarity.

This is episode 5 in our series on the core skills we teach in our NLP Practitioner program. As we enter the second half of the program, we focus on the states and outcomes that set you up for communication success.

This is the 4th episode in our series on the skills being taught in the NLP Practitioner Course. This episode builds on the first 3 days to understand how to set your direction so that you move strongly. Goals are important, but they are the seasoning, not the main ingredient. Your life is not a list: it's a territory you can map so you know how to get there from here.