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People want reframing to start with cleverness, a James-Bond-like ability to use a gadget or a quick move to change who is winning. But the beginning of reframing is framing: putting edges around a situation so that you can focus on the details inside the frame. Life is a movement between the moment, full of vivid details, and the future, which is hazy, moving, or shifting. Without movement we are stuck. Without the moment, we are lost in the haze.

Moving on before you have heard what someone wants to say is not efficient. It leads to misunderstandings and mistakes that have real, measurable costs. Plunging ahead with a message that is incomplete or comes from a different point of view is also not efficient. It ensures that the other person will fill in the blanks with their best guess (which will often not be what you had in mind).

If you want to win the rapport game, you need to know more than how to reflect what you observe in someone else. You need to know how to reflect, gain attention, and then move to a more useful state. That more useful state needs to use the energy present in a new way and in a new direction. People learn to box and roll with the punches. They learn aikido. They can also learn to counter their intuitions and connect in difficult situations without amplifying conflict. It’s easier with a skilled teacher and lots of practice.

What’s the difference between experiencing NLP in a workshop and what you can learn in a certification? A workshop is like tasty appetizers: you enjoy them but they’re not a real meal. The certification shows you all the pieces and it shows you how they fit together, from appetizers to dessert.

Everyday ugly is not trauma. It’s not big picture. It’s not the end of the world. It’s the moment someone says something snide or cutting when you’re already struggling. It’s the pressure to do something quickly instead of doing it well. It’s the voice in your head that says “I can’t handle this right now.” What would we teach you to do in the face of everyday ugly?

What if you stop and really notice what you are doing? What if you ask yourself: is this going to achieve something good? What if you test a tiny change? It’s really hard to make big changes in the things we do every day. All our automatic behaviours pull us back into doing what we’ve always done. But a tiny change, chosen to require just a very small amount of willpower, can sneak through the filters. And the next day, because it takes just a very small amount of willpower, you might do it again. Until it becomes a new way of doing.

When famous inventors spent many years on failed attempts before creating the thing that made them famous, they used bloody minded optimism. Every failure felt like failure and they didn’t stop. This is also true of the many people who were working on the same inventions at the same time and did not make it into the history books. What keeps them going is usually not the warm fuzzies of inspiration. It is a willful determination to see the obvious, to hear the criticism, and to keep going anyway.

Often plodding forward in uneven lighting is exactly what we are called to do. We learn from biographies of the great creators that their lives were less about lightning bolts of understanding and more about showing up and believing the next step would lead somewhere good. This should not let our leaders off the hook, as though we don’t need any spark to light our best thinking. It should, instead, make them aware that lots of little sparks of connection and vision and discipline can come together to inspire in a way that a dazzling image of the future might not.

People can only judge what they can perceive and they cannot see your ‘authentic self.’ They can see your body and listen to your words and notice what resonates in them. They will trust you when the effect of your words is the same as the effect of your state. Your mind and body are always integrated. Sometimes that means they communicate your uncertainty. With practice, it can mean that you are communicating your integrity.