BVRLA trainer, Roy McDonald, explains how a fear of water from his youth led to him becoming an NLP master practitioner.
My first introduction to NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) was in 2010. I’d recently returned from a holiday in Spain with my wife and two daughters with a feeling of embarrassment, shame, humiliation and weakness, which had roots in an unpleasant youthful experience.
Whilst on an outward-bound course in 1981, we’d settled down by a lake to rest. The temperature was around 25o and everyone was jumping in the water. All except me as I couldn’t really swim.
“Jump in” they shouted, “No thanks” I replied. They persisted and persisted, so I jumped in, right at the very edge, hoping that it was shallow enough for me to stand in. Ooooops, no bottom! When I eventually came back up floundering in the water, they thought I was messing about; it soon became apparent, however, that I was drowning. The panic left me traumatised - until 2010 that is.
In 2010, I joined my family on a huge water slide in Spain. Having a good look beforehand at the people coming down, it appeared to be shallow when they reached the end. So off we went, both daughters went down first, followed by my wife and then me. With my heart in my mouth I set off, hit the water at speed doing a somersault at the same time, and when I went to stand up, guess what… no bottom. All the memories of me as a 19-year-old in Wales came flooding back. I panicked and floundered and needed rescuing again.
I mentioned this to a work colleague who recommended NLP to overcome my fear of water and in doing so gave me the name of an NLP Practitioner. But I didn’t just go to see him, I signed up for a four-day diploma course which changed my life. I came away from the four-day course truly enlightened and soon after that I was able to swim in the deep blue oceans of Jamaica.
Since then I have studied and trained to be an NLP master practitioner, helping people to use the power within to increase their performance. NLP is a model of human excellence, you can do anything you want to do, when you know how to use the resources in you. Once you understand the principles of NLP and practice, you will realise and notice the benefit it will offer you in your business and personal life.
So how can NLP help your business? NLP is a process of studying the patterns of mind, language and strategies used by successful people. It can be applied to many areas of life - relationships, effective communication, mental performance and even sport. Practical uses of NLP in the world of business can lead to a person becoming more motivated, improve work performance and boost sales. Simply by applying NLP techniques and tools.
I’ll share some of these tools and techniques when I see you on the next NLP for Effective Sellling course, in the meantime here is a quote from the founders of NLP;
“NLP is an explicit and powerful model of human experience and communication. Using the principles of NLP, it is possible to describe any human activity in a detailed way that allows you to make many deep and lasting changes quickly and easily.”
Richard Bandler and John Grinder
Share this blog via your own channels:
Members can download the social media image resources available for free from our Communications Toolkit. Don't forget to tag us #BVRLAblog @bvrla.
Author
