Networking Works!

In times of slowdown, networking really is the way to go. This week I've had 3 one to one's and attended a networking lunch and an evening event. It's always amazing how enthusiastic we all are about our business and how optimistic we are for the future, despite what the economists say. By mixing with other enthusiastic people we maintain and enhance our own enthusiasm and it certainly beats the other option of choosing to be with people who are negative.

Remember the toxic person who can bring down the whole meeting and discussion. The old analogies of the rotten apple ruining the whole barrel of fruit and it only takes one ripe banana to ripen the bunch. So only one positive person can have a tremendous impact.

We need to look within ourselves and see us as others see us, are we the glass half full or the glass half empty person.

I love the quote from Winston Churchill: "I am an optimist, there doesn't seem to be any point in being otherwise".

This is not to say we are wearing rose tinted glasses as we have to be aware of the work that is needed to bring optimism to fruition, so the initial networking is only the beginning. It's the following up and maintaining contact that will move the relationship along to trust and respect and ultimately referrals or a synergistic relationship.

So whether you are networking on line or face to face realise the time you are spending on it is an investment in you and your future.

The First Green Shoots

I think we’ve had enough of talking ourselves down and we should now start anticipating our recovery and working towards that.

I’ve had a very interesting week meeting lots of new people and potential business partners plus having stimulating conversations that generate business ideas. These must be the first green shoots.

It’s really interesting, and I never realised this before I was told today, that October is the month for financial collapse and doom messages being latest news. Now we are in Spring we can expect the news to change and people to start being more optimistic. Some countries are even talking about putting the recession behind them and are starting to talk about their recovery.

I think the quote by Whitney Young Jr. sums up what we need to be doing right now. “It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared”.

So what can we do? Well I think the positive side of The Law of Attraction needs to be dusted off and polished up. So what do you want to happen to your business in 2009? What skills would you like to develop this year? Which company would you ideally like to be working with? Start to clarify your thoughts on these questions and then focus on what you want to achieve, preferably with some “sensory acuity” or “see, hear and feel” words to describe it and put it out into the ether. Then start thinking about what you can be doing right now to move towards achieving that goal, you’ll be surprised at the results.

Remember the quote by Henry Ford “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right”.


There are three books I would recommend for reading now, two are very short books, the first is “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne and the second is a very tiny book called “The Precious Present” which is about keeping positively grounded in today or Carpe Diem. The third book is quite uplifting and it is “Chicken Soup for the Soul”.

I’d love to hear your success stories regarding your green shoots or even small shrubs or giant trees.

Achieving Outcomes Through Flexibility and Personal Power

Thinking about the difficult discussions we sometimes get involved in I thought it might be useful to think of how we might help ourselves be more effective.

One of the main elements of NLP is Flexibility and this aspect of behaviour is useful in helping us achieve our outcomes.

If in any situation you are not getting the response you want, then take a different approach, don’t change your outcome. Instead be flexible.

Ø If you only have 1 choice - you are a robot

Ø If you only have 2 choices - you have a dilemma

Ø If you have 3 choices - you have flexibility

The person with the most flexibility is the one in control.

I am reminded of a favourite quote of mine

“If you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

In order for us to be flexible we need to change the way we think and to do this we need different stimuli.

Ways of enhancing flexibility

Ø Interrupt old patterns - drive to work a different way
Ø Make a list of your habits for a week - change them for a week
Ø Do something you have never done before
Ø Look at the world through someone else’s glasses - your neighbour’s perhaps. Pretend you are 17 or 93 for one hour
Ø For one day leave everybody you interact with in a better state than when you found them
Ø Switch your channels of perception. This is Visual, Auditory and Kineasthetic.
Ø When you notice you are acting inside a ‘should’. Change role models for 3 minutes - be someone else, someone who wouldn’t take notice of the ‘should’ way of behaving.

Personal Power

Another basic tenant of NLP is Personal Power, which is about being Proactive rather than reactive and about taking action Now. Personal Power is Habit 1 in Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which is being Proactive. There’s a quote I like that fits this well

“If you knew you couldn’t fail and could only succeed what would you do?”

This is about taking the fear of failure away from us and it is often this that stops us using our initiative and being proactive.

Sometimes we stop ourselves from achieving what we want, from making changes. A good exercise to do for this (which I have modified from Sue Knight’s book, NLP at Work – which is a good read):

Write a list of the changes you would like for yourself, this can be skills you want, relationships, lifestyle, using your time in a different way.

Once you’ve got your list choose just one and now write down how you stop yourself achieving this, your favourite ways of procrastinating – both physical and mental. This can be imagining all the difficulties you would face in doing it, talking to other people who would be happy for you to stay as you are, etc.

Next you look at each of your stoppers and ask yourself whether this is the real thing that is stopping you from achieving your outcome.

When you have found your real stopper go back to the change you wanted to make and do an ecology check on it. Is having the change going to cause harm to you or others, is it worth what it will take to get it? Can you turn your stopper into an outcome that dovetails with the original change you wanted.

Write down what you really want instead of where you are at now. Make sure this is a well formed outcome (as described in the last blog).

What actions do you need to take to achieve your outcome? Map this out in steps and do a timeline for it. In a future update I will take you through a process I call Strategic Mapping, this creates a timeframe of actions to achieve your outcome.

Well Formed Outcomes

A Well Formed Outcome is when we know what we want out of a situation in fairly defined terms. There is a significant body of evidence to suggest that a major factor in the success of any endeavour lies in establishing a clear idea of the outcome.

A Well Formed Outcome reminds me of the Alice In Wonderland quote when Alice asks the cat “Which way should I go from here” and the cat replies “That depends a great deal on where you want to get to”. Then Alice replies “Well I don’t really mind where I get to” and the cat replies “Well it doesn’t matter which way you go”.

Or if we link it to business it ties in with Stephen Covey and his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Habit 2 Begin with the End in Mind. Focus on your outcome and everything should flow from that.

NLP suggests that well-formed outcomes meet 4 key criteria.

1. They are stated in the positive
The task is to establish a positive idea of what you do want, rather than an idea of what you ‘don’t want’. You get what you focus on.
The problem with any outcome stated in negative terms is that your mind will be programmed to focus on the unwanted result and may work hard, outside your consciousness, to deliver that result. For instance if I say the one thing you must not focus on is a blue rabbit with pink ears. What happens? Of course you thought about a blue rabbit with pink ears, this is because our mind cannot process a 'don't' or a 'not'. It has to imagine it first before cancelling it.

2. They have sensory-based representations of success
The question here is how you will recognise success when you have achieved your outcome. Sensory-based representations of success are the 3 main NLP channels:

* what will you see ?
* what will you hear ?
* what will you feel ?

3. They are self-maintained
The outcome will be something that you can initiate and maintain independently. You can only change yourself and your outcome should be something that reflects this. For an outcome to be well formed, what you set out to achieve must be within your control, as must all the resources necessary to achieve it.

4. They are mindful and respectful of consequences
It is important that you have asked yourself questions about the consequences of achieving any outcome before you start. The key questions are:

Ø Will achieving this outcome preserve the benefits of the present situation?
Ø Does this outcome fit with who I am?
Ø Will there be any adverse consequences for others?
Ø Is the effort worth the cost?

Now an exercise for you. Think of something you want to achieve and write it down using these 4 points and then see what happens with the powerful Law of Attraction.

The Law of Attraction is very simple. It is based on the premise that thoughts are magnetic and have a frequency and as you think you send your thoughts out into the universe and they attract all things on the same frequency and these come to you. So you are like a human transmission tower. If you want to change your life you change your thoughts.So change your thinking, think about what you would like to achieve and the success you are looking for. Keep saying this to yourself and see what happens. You really have nothing to lose.

Mentors and Queen Victoria

I was fortunate to attend a preview last night of the new film The Young Victoria. It is a fantastic film and Emily Blunt - Victoria and Rupert Friend - Albert, played their roles incredibly well. The costumes were also superb. I thoroughly recommend it.
One of the things that struck me in the film was how Queen Victoria was rather lost at the beginning of her reign and how she was influenced tremendously by Lord Melbourne and this wasn't for the best. It was only after she married Prince Albert, who appears to have been a wise, thoughtful and loyal man, and she listened to his advice that she started her successful reign. This is really what we all need - someone who we can trust to give us sound advice without having their own agenda in mind (as Lord Melbourne did).
We really do need kind, loyal, trustworthy mentors and I am sure that there are many of them around that we can turn to. Also I think our role is in turn to be that mentor to others, so if you would like to talk anything through or ask us for our views, then you know where we are.
Sue Lock