Mastery involves focus, concentration, passion, intention, commitment, and discipline.  We can’t achieve mastery in everything in fact most people are unlikely to achieve mastery in anything as they dabble in this and hack about at that.

 I know I have gotten all excited about something bought all the equipment only to have it gather dust some month later.

George Leonard identified four types of people that he experienced over the years: Dabblers, Hackers, Compulsives, and Masters.  As you read these descriptions perhaps you will recognise some elements of yourself, your friends or your colleagues?

Dabblers get into one thing, develop a certain level of skill, get bored, drop it, and move on to something else. Or they have one business idea try it for a few months and then want to do something else.

You can identify dabblers because they are always “trying” – “I will try this”.

Hackers develop a certain level of basic skill and then are content to sit on the plateau and never rise in skill or ability.  Hackers can evolve to new levels of skill, but usually do so only in response to some immediate need or crisis.

For example a social tennis player gets beaten and then takes lessons so that s/he can maintain face or an employee threatened by a new employee’s abilities and lifts their game so as not to be shown up.

You can identify hackers because they are always “Shoulding” – “I should get better at this.”

Compulsives reach the first plateau and become uncomfortable with their level of performance and so push harder and harder to get better faster.  They may reach another plateau or two, but ultimately they burn out.

Compulsives are always struggling and you can identify them by them always saying, “I have to do this.”

Masters understand that the plateau is part and parcel of the mastery process.  They recognise that there are a never-ending series of plateaus on the path toward mastery.  They recognise that being on the plateau and practicing is every bit as exciting as spurts of growth.  So they are undaunted by plateaus; they view them as an expected part of the ebb and flow of life.

The path of the master involves getting instruction, practicing, surrendering to the practice, keeping a clear intention to be the best, periodically pushing the “edge of the envelop.”

Howard Gardner (Creating Minds) wrote extensive descriptions of 7 Geniuses of the 20th century, one as a representative of his Seven Intelligences.  In that work, he describes his research about the pattern that it typically takes a person Ten Years to Master a Field of study.

As a speaker, trainer and coach I know that I am always learning and I know why I am learning; each time I engage with a client I feel that same passion and excitement as when I first started many, many years ago.

Are you on the path of mastery? Have you committed to continual improvement? Let’s hear your stories.

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Now while I never present the genius state as a hypnotic process and state, it absolutely is.  When you experience this naturally occurring state (and everybody does at some time), it seems to happen to you, to come upon you, and when you look back on it, you typically remember it as a wonderful experience.

What induces it?  Usually something that’s very important to you, something that you actively engage with and when you do, you get lost in it.  You become thrilled and absorbed in it.  It could be reading a book, it could be walking in a Redwood forest, it could be gardening, it could be playing catch with your dogs, writing, watching a great movie, having a fantastic conversation with a friend, making love, climbing a rock wall, playing a video game, and on and on the list goes.

The key is absorption in something that you care about, an absorption that pulls you into it so much so that you can get lost in it.  Then, in that moment when you are in that “flow” state, you are not multi-tracking.  You have lost all of your meta-mind awarenesses about all of the other things you need to do and track and you have become of one mind about the absorption.   Now in that moment, you won’t realize this!  If you were aware of it, you would be double-tracking.  But you’re not.

It is only later when you look back on the experience that you realize that you during that time you were all there— fully and completely. And during that time you realize that many of the central factors of your consciousness disappeared.  Time disappeared and you were lost in the now, this moment, and your awareness of time just vanished.  So did the world and others and even your self vanished.  These facets of the matrix of your mind were still there, but you lost consciousness of them.  You became self-forgetful, time forgetful, world forgetful.  All you were aware of was the subject of whatever the focus was about.

Athletes experience this as when a gymnast disappears the audience and they are there alone with the high bars or the floor.  A baseball pitcher similarly disappears a whole stadium.  In their focus-flow-genius state all that is there is the ball and the batter.  When an athlete goes into this special state, they typically call it being in the zone. And a couple years ago Tim Goodenough and Mike Cooper, two Meta-Coaches modeled out 13 distinctions from top South African athletes (Olympiads and national champions) in their Neuro-Semantic book, In the Zone.

In the field of NLP the first work on the prerequisites of the “personal genius state” was developed by John Grinder and Judith DeLozer (1983- 1987).  The processes that they came up with were interesting, but quite convoluted and therefore ineffective.  They were fooling around with meta-levels as they were trying to figure out how to utilize the guidance of Gregory Bateson and his principles of the higher levels.  And they even wrote that they knew the secret would tie in somehow with managing the meta-levels.  They got thta from Bateson, they just didn’t know how to apply it.  That came later after I created the Meta-States model (1994).  One of my very first applications of Meta-States was to the genius state prerequisites and that brought about the Accessing Your Personal Genius state or induction (and hence the APG training).

What Meta-States was able to do as a process, and as the ultimate hypnotic state, was to set the required meta-levels (as meta-states or frames) over the primary state so that you can let go of the meta-awarenesses and be fully present in the primary state. Doing this commissions the higher meta-states to operate as an out-side of conscious awareness structure.  It’s paradoxical, as is many hypnotic states.  To release the multi-tracking kind of consciousness, you learn how to embrace your meta-level states and use them so that you are freed for letting them go— from your immediate awareness.

Then you can be all there— with all of your resources available for the flow or in-the-zone state.  Then when you read, you fully comprehend because you are there (and not elsewhere!).  Then when you write, you don’t suffer the dreaded “writer’s block.”  Then when you are there with a client or loved one, you are there and they can feel your full presence. And now you know why we use the APG training to create your genius coaching state, genius training state, genius writing state, wealth creation state, etc.  It is the ultimate Neuro-Semantic state for operating from your highest and best.  So that makes it a self-actualizing state.  And now you know why APG — Accessing Personal Genius— is the flagship training of Neuro-Semantics.

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According to the Chinese Zodiac, the tiger is a symbol of power and authority and therefore leadership; unfortunately the style of leadership represented is poor on relationship.

Poor people leadership is something I encounter on a daily basis; just recently I was conducting a Coaching for Managers program and one senior manager told me his boss had refused to attend saying, “I don’t believe in that s#!t”

On the flip side I have been working with some great people, recently, who really believe in developing people-skills and are seeing the business results to confirm their belief.

If this is your first or fiftieth time reading this blog, I hope my posts, in some small way, make the Year of the Tiger profitable, productive and harmonious for you.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

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As part of my study of leadership and business, I recently read a classic— Tom Peters’ 1985 book, A Passion for Excellence: The Leadership Difference.  This book followed his best selling book on great companies, Search for Excellence (1982).  By the time I read over 300 pages, I knew that I was going to use a number of quotes on “coaching.”  Then I turned the page to Chapter 18.  It has a one line title, Coaching.

Now if that doesn’t surprise you as it did me, then let me remind you that Thomas Leonard did not create the field of “Coaching” until 1991.  So this chapter was published 6 years earlier!  And while there’s a few things I’ll mention in a minute that doesn’t fit for Meta-Coaching, mostly it is right on target.  Chapter 18 is addressed to executive leaders and managerial leaders in an organization about how to be a leader coach.  Now is that relevant?  To see for yourself, here are a few key quotations from the book:

“Coaching is face-to-face leadership that pulls together people with diverse backgrounds, talents, experiences and interests, encourages them to step up to responsibility and continued achievement, and treats them as full-scale partners and contributions.  Coaching is not about memorizing techniques or devising the perfect game plan.  It is about really paying attention to people— really believing them, really caring about them, really involving them.

“To coach is largely to facilitate, which literally means ‘to make easy’ —not less demanding, less interesting or less intense, but less discouraging, less bound up with excessive controls and complications.  A coach/facilitator works tirelessly to free the team from needless restrictions on performance, even when they are self-imposed.  In these next few pages we will talk about some of the most vital aspects of coaching: visibility, listening, limit-setting, value-shaping, skill-stretching.” (325-326)

Under the title of “Coaching by Wandering Around,” Tom Peters writes about leaders and managers who use coaching as their methodology for leading:

“Coaching is the process of enabling others to act, of building on their strengths.  It’s counting on people to use their own special skill and competence, and then giving them enough room and enough time to do it.  Coaching at its heart involves caring enough about people to take the time to build a personal relationship with them.” (328)

“Coaching is tough-minded.  It’s nurturing and bring out the best; it’s demanding that the team play as a team.” (329)

“Every coach, at every level, is above all a value-shaper.  The value-shaper not only brings company philosophy to life by paying extraordinary attention to communicating and symbolizing it.” (330)

“The best coaches spend as much time developing the team’s ability to believe in what each member can contribute as they do working with individual players.  It sets the tone for the way people should aim to work together and trust evolves in the process.” (334)

Now for what Tom Peters wrote that does not fit for coaching today as we know it via Meta-Coaching.  This indicates the way coaching has evolved from 1984 to today:

“Five Coaching Roles: In short, sometimes coaching is not coaching, but counseling, or sponsoring, or confronting, or educating.” (337)

“It turns out that successful coaches instinctively vary their approaches to meet the needs of this person at this time, or that group at that time.  They perform five distinctly different roles: they educate, sponsor, coach, counsel, and confront.” (338)

The theme of this chapter on Coaching is that the leader is a coach and the leader who coaches appeals to the best in each person, has an open door, is a problem-solver and cheerleader, thinks of ways to make people more productive, manages by wandering around, is a good listener, etc. (354-357).

“Effective coaching means creating winners, keeping the faith in the thick of turmoil, building momentum, finding tiny glimmers of light (to reinforce) in the midst of darkness…” (357)

“Effective leadership is full-time people development. … In coaching, the name of the game is execution.” (359)

“Coaching includes praise— expressing approval or admiration, applauding, commending and lauding small (and large) victories.” (361)

“Coaching is ongoing leadership. …  Coaches stretch you to your limit, a limit often beyond what you thought possible.” (362)

“The best coaches set in motion a continuing learning process —one that helps people develop a tolerance for their own struggles and accelerates the unfolding of skill and contributions that would not have been possible without the ‘magic’ attention of a dedicated coach.” (377)

“Leading is a hands-on art.  Coaching is the essence of leading– developing those with whom we work.  Coaching is MBWA (management by wandering around.” (384)

As I reflect on these writings some 26 years ago, no wonder coaching has become such a powerful modality in the business world.  And today we stand on the shoulders of such giants as Tom Peters.

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NLP is a model of how humans think, feel, behave and communicate. When NLP was developed in the 1970’s by Bandler and Grinder it was a radical departure from the field of psychology, which at the time was focused more on human dysfunction than peak performance.

Today, with the acceptance of positive psychology, NLP appears less radical can be viewed as an excellent framework for learning to communicate effectively, to model people and systems and to design strategies for peak performance. Learning NLP can improve the performance of athletes, sales people, business people, coaches, trainers, teachers, therapists and parents.

NLP for Consulting, Training and Coaching

I use NLP and NeuroSemantics in my consulting, training and coaching and I enjoy sharing the technology through public programs that I hold in Singapore and other parts of SE Asia. You can get a list of the upcoming programs by clicking here. I highly recommend NLP Communication and  Coaching Essentials which is the first 3-day of a NLP Practitioner program and covers how to communicate and coach effectively plus we are conducting  a full NLP Master Practitioner training in October.

NLP  Association of Singapore Video

If you like watching videos on YouTube then you can watch part of my presentation to the Singapore NLP Association.

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With self leadership coaching he came to the powerful realisation that it his ‘Mind’ his ‘Choices’ and his ‘Life’.

If, like my client, you are lacking ‘permission’ by taking ownership and responsibility of your mind, your choices an your life puts you in the drivers seat and enables you to create the personal or business success you want.

Confirmation of this power to choose is the theme of the final part of The Matrix movie trilogy. The character Neo is able to triumph over Agent Smith when, after prompting from The Oracle, he re-discovers his power of choice.

Is there an area in your life or career that you have been saying “I have no choice”? I wonder what would happen if you were to take responsibility and say; “My mind, my choice, my life!”

My coaching client did take control and left a low paying, menial job and started traveling; he settled in Vietnam where he started a business and met the love of his life.

If you would like coaching to assist you achieve this positive and powerful choice then connect to a coach or attend one of our self leadership programs.

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The list could go on for several pages but I think you get the idea, you can choose who you want to be and what you want to do without breaking any universal, moral or government laws. To be successful you must first step back and realise – No permission is required.

“Isn’t this approach selfish?” I am often asked by students and clients, my answer is definitely “no” but this issue is more eloquently answered by Marianne Williamson in her book ‘A Return to Love’:

“There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you… your playing small does not serve the world… as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I was recently asked, “Shouldn’t we find out what others think first?” Whilst at Self Leadership International we teach the art of feedback, you must be careful – if you solicit opinions from the wrong people you’re likely to reach the wrong conclusions – remember that the personal computer didn’t research very well in the 1970s and Richard Branson was told that the airline business was saturated.

So my question to you in this blog is “What is it that you want to do but are not doing because you are waiting for permission?”

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The Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation, conferred by the National Speakers Association (USA and Australia) and the International Federation for Professional Speakers, is the speaking profession’s international measure of professional platform skills. There are less than 600 CSP’s in the world and only 3 currently in Singapore.

If you are a meeting planner or planning a meeting, hiring a professional speaker who has achieved CSP means that you have insured that your event will be a success because the speaker has demonstrated competency in:

• Professional platform skills
• Professional business management
• Professional education
• Professional association

In addition the speaker has received excellent ratings from past clients on performance evaluations.

If you are a speaker or want to become a professional speaker I highly recommend that you join an IFFPS association, I am a member of the Asian Professional Speakers Singapore and you can read my blog post on presentation skills.

See you on the platform, Andrew Bryant CSP an expert who speaks on Self Leadership, Coaching and People Development.

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Together with Executive Coach, Dennis Heath,  he will facilitate a debrief a video of masterful coaching by Meta Coach Michelle Duval.

If you are in Singapore and want to see how masterful coaches, build rapport, ask questions, probe for meaning, and co-create new behaviours and reinforce resourceful thoughts and actions, then come along. Details here.

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I was greeted at the company by the company’s communications manager who was to show me to the boardroom to meet the CEO. She politely asked me if she could get me anything, perhaps thinking I might need a tea or coffee. My response was, “well actually, I intend to break at about 3pm, could you possibly get me a sandwich as I am starving!” She looked somewhat surprised but at 3:00pm exactly a 12 inch Subway sandwich arrived in the boardroom.

Giving the CEO the opportunity to take a bathroom break I hungrily bit into the sandwich only to be surprised by the fact it was full of jalapeno chillies! Now I normally like spicy food, but it was the surprise that got me. At the end of the day when showing me out, I asked her whether the jalapenos were revenge for being asked to get me a sandwich, “Oh no”, she replied, “I just had it made the way I like it.”

I use this story in trainings to make the point that most often we communicate the way we like to be communicated to. If you prefer people to be direct, you will speak directly – If you prefer people to build a case you will build a case. So a common communication mistake is not considering your audience and communicating in your default or preferred style.

I provide influence training for an international bank and I find that I really need to stress the importance of a flexible approach to communication. Since the client is a bank I use the analogy that everyone has a PIN (personal identification number) that will unlock their resistance and allow you to communicate with them and, mixing my metaphors, each person broadcasts their SSID (a wireless access point identifier) to tell you how to log on to their network.

Leaders, managers, coaches and trainers need to learn to read people’s preferred communication style in order to adapt their communication in order to be understood. It may be arrogance or even stupidity to expect others to always adapt to you. There is a direct correlation between communication and productivity and so your results in work or life will depend on your ability to get a message across.

Can you learn to read people and adapt your communication to get better results? The answer is, of course “yes” So to help you get started here is a list of things to avoid:

Common Communication Mistakes

• Being directive when you want buy in
• Using “I” when you want team effort
• Using “You” when you want to resolve conflict
• Being aggressive or submissive (assertive is the alternative)
• Attempting to influence when your are unclear what you want
• Not finding out what’s important to the other party
• Using only logic without emotion
• Using only emotion without some logic
• Talking down to people
• Asking questions and not listening to the answer

So if you find yourself using any of the above or are not getting the results you want in life and business, then why not contact us to find out how to become an effective and influential communicator?

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