Keep Working at It

You probably know a version of the story where you fall in love at first sight with a handsome prince, or the one where you work hard to deserve true love, the story where you travel far to follow your heart or the one where it turns out your true love has been with you […]

Realism Needs to Partner With Dreams

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” George Bernard Shaw Somehow we have come to see realism and dreams as opponents. Most of the time, we talk as though being reasonable and practical are […]

We Go Further When We Build on Each Other’s Efforts

There’s no such thing as individual excellence. Watch your favourite sports star –then watch the coaches, the trainers, the medical staff, and the fans. All of them have a role to play in providing resources, knowledge, support and motivation to the star. And those are just the people that are easy to see. When we […]

Pulled Between Self-Knowledge and Influence

Spring is a time of opposites. Feasts and fasting. Death and rebirth. The longing for green and the sting of allergies. Long weekends and long COVID. How do you feel about being pulled in two directions at once? On the one hand, many NLP practices are about congruence, the alignment of all parts of you […]

When Work Leads to a Dead End, Try Play Instead

People are sometimes puzzled when I say that play is a powerful state. They think of power as requiring work, and play as being something you do if you can find some time. Grown ups will often only play if they see it as part of the work of parenting. And that means they are […]

Are You Willing to Be Silly if It Gets You a Result?

What do you do to prepare for the stuff that takes your best thinking or your best presence? It sometimes seems that conditioning yourself is a grim, disciplined process. But discipline will only take you so far. As I was driving this weekend, I was listening to this podcast. The story started and I thought, […]

It’s Harder to Communicate With the People We Know Well

Why is it so often easier to have a conversation with someone you’ll never see again? At least one study has shown that people who agreed to talk to the person next to them on a commuter train experienced better commutes, even when they said they’d rather sit quietly by themselves. This study is often […]

The Heart of Communication Is Attention

I’m just starting to read a book called The Language Game and I just finished reading The Power of Fun. At the same time, I’m preparing new evening workshops on connection and communication. All of this work reinforces one core idea. The heart of communication is not the words you choose: it’s the attention you […]

Clear Language Gets Under Your Skin

What do you do when you want someone to remember what you tell them? You might be giving instructions or motivating someone to take a next step. If people don’t remember what you’ve said, they are much less likely to take action. Many people will talk about the need to make your ideas clear. But […]

If It’s Worth Doing, It’s Worth Practicing

One of the hardest ideas for me to communicate effectively is very simple. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth practicing. People practice sports and instruments. They practice mindfulness. And they have professional practices. Maybe the last one is why people assume that once they are professionals who have practices, they won’t need to practice. And […]