Modern Jedi NLP Mind Mastery

Posts Tagged ‘Music’

Twitter Tips for the Modern Jedi NLP Mind Master

I’ve just finally “got” what twitter is all about. And I think it justifies a post so that I can share some of what I’ve learned and some of the resources I’ve discovered which may help you to get right to it. If you are wondering what twitter has to do with NLP or the Way of the Modern Jedi, it’s this: Tiwtter is a powerful tool to build your practice, and to rapidly build a community of people who are interested in what you have to offer. For folks like Noah St. John and Tony Robbins it’s a way to stay in touch with “the faithful” without clogging up their e-mail in-boxes. For me it’s a way I can reach out to people with specific interests in Music or NLP or who may be local. It’s flexible and a lot of fun.

The other day I saw a short post from some one I’m following on twitter it said: “I just ran with scissors!”

I wrote back “I just stood on a chair!” It was something that took only a moment and it made me smile. I also recently had lunch with some folks here in New Haven who I met on twitter. You never know till you get into it.

So here are some basics:

First things first:

Go to http://twitter.com and sign up for an account.

It is best to use your real name if you can get it. (Use upper and lower case so your first and last name stand out.) The new social media is about being real and accessible. If you advertised your practice in a holistic publication like “Natural Awakenings” you wouldn’t use some silly user name would you?

Make sure you fill out your location and short, one sentence bio. Make sure that you leave the box for “protect my updates” empty. You want to be in the public stream.

Next. Follow me. You can do that by using the twitter search function or just use this link: http://twitter.com/MarkShepard

The next thing you need to know about Twitter is that it is considered polite to follow those people who follow you. And unless some one is completely objectionable it’s a good idea. You can tell almost instantly from a persons follow/following ratio whether they “get” twitter or not. If someone’s following about the same number as are following them they are most likely going to follow you back when you follow them.

There are a couple of programs that can even automatically follow people who follow you and send them a welcoming message. You should get one of those when you follow me. It has a link to my http://MarkShepardSongs.com site where they can get free downloads of my songs.

I use http://www.SocialToo.com but I like http://www.TweetLater.com also. Check them both out.

Some people make a business pitch in their auto follow e-mail. This is not about making a sale. It’s about building a community and contributing something to that community. The best one’s offer some kind of legitimate help. Like the guy I followed who in his follow back pointed out I could change my twitter username from markshepard to MarkShepard. Just  a helpful little tip. I appreciated it. Most of what I’m sharing with you here today I learned from short little tweets on twitter.

And that’s what twitter is all about. It’s people helping other people and making themselves useful.

It’s not what it first appears to be, which is a platform for the self absorbed to trumpet their every moment of their dull mundane day. It’s about having conversations and making connections that gracefully lead people to what you have to offer.

Once you have a twitter account and have followed me, click on the link on your twitter home page titled “Everyone”. Just take a few minutes and read through the most recent posts.Any time you see someones user name preceded by an @ symbol you can right click and open their twitter page in a new tab. If they seem interesting to you go ahead and follow them by clicking the “follow” button. You can unfollow them at any time by clicking the same button on their page.

Please note: if you follow a bunch of people who have fewer than 100 followers and who are following a small number they most likely are newbies and will not have set up the auto follow process. You mostly want to follow people at this point who have a strong likely hood of following you back. One of our goals is to rapidly build social proof as well as a community of people who we can tweet to.

The best resource I found for getting a massive number of followers in a short time is Scot Mckay’s short video. Scot is also one of my favorite dating and relationship coaches and he is a master of the new Web 2.0 social media world. So if you’re not into dating or healthy relationships just focus on what he has to say about twitter. I have watched him go from 1,000 followers to over 25,000 followers in the last three weeks or so. Following his advice I’ve gone from 100 to well over 1,000 followers in about 2 weeks with very little time or effort spent on it. Plus I’ve connected with some great info about music marketing on the web etc.

How To Get 1,000 Twitter followers in 12 Days by Scot Mckay

Also his video “Why Follow Everyone Back On Twitter” is excellent as well.

Scot McKay also offers a free e-book called “Twiduction” that has a lot more nuts and bolts of how to pimp your twitter profile. You should do that even if you are not trying to attract dates. Just take his “how to” advice and use it in your own context. Everything in it works perfectly well for attracting business clients. After all business networking is a lot like dating…(I know, material for yet another post at another time)

Any questions? I’d be happy to answer them. Just leave a comment below. I look forward to Tweeting with you soon!

Mark

Just so you have them in one place here are some additional twitter resources to check out once you get going.

http://www.friendorfollow.com this enables you to see at a glance who is not following you back, who you are not following and who are your mutual followers/following folks.

http://www.twitter.grader.com this enables you to search specifi key words like NLP or localities like New Haven or Connecticut so you can find people who you might want to follow.

http://www.TweetDeck.com this handy application is actually much easier to use than the regular twitter home page. you can see all your follows tweeting by you in real time. it also does some handy things like automatically shorten any long URL that you might be passing on to your Tweets.

Just have a moment to share one key thought with you today:

What questions do you habitually ask?

The reason for asking is this - Your unconscious mind responds to questions more powerfully than any other kind of self talk. So if you want your affirmations to really create change internally, turning them into a question can make a difference. Noah St. John calls these affirmations in question form: "Afformations".

What happens is your Unconscious Mind hears a question and begins to activate a process that is hardwired into our neurology. For example if you ask yourself "How can I find a way?" You Mind begins to filter your reality and it begins to find ways to answer you. It begins to draw your attention to answers.

So listen today to what you ask yourself. Are you asking disempowering questions like "Why am I such a __________ (negative label)? or are you asking powerful questions like "why am I in the right place at the right time doing the right thing for the highest good?"

Now, if you've been following my posts lately you might recall that a few weeks ago I started asking myself a series of very, "dangerous" questions. I only mean "dangerous" in the sense that the answer might disrupt my comfort zone. Sometimes "danger" is a good thing. Ask any bungee jumper!

The questions were: "If I had only 6 months to live what would I be doing? What would I stop doing? How would I spend my time?

I got several answers.

1. Record each and every one of the almost 400 songs I've written over the past 30 years.
2. Spend as much time with my friends and family as possible
3. Share my music with as many people as possible.
4. I would stop trying to "be everything to everybody" (Listening to my own song "Motivation" reminded me of that. Listen to "Motivation" here

If those were the answers, the "dangerous" challenge was to do that. Now.Not next year. Not next month. Now.

If you really and truly acted on what you say is most important to you, how would your life change? No matter we "say" is most important, it's what we "do" that really demonstrates it.

Sometimes that's that last thing I want to hear!

For me it became clear that renting a large beautiful, expensive apartment was less important than my 3 priorities. But daring to let it go even if I didn't know where I would be going (even if it made me sad) opened up the possibilities. One idea was to put all my extra stuff in storage and travel from friend to friend, family member to family member, connecting and performing along the way. Performing could mean a guest spot at a local church, performing at a Starbucks, or even on the street.

All of a sudden other places to perform began to show up on my internal radar screen. At one point I performed at hundreds of elementary schools each year all over New England. Lately that has been down to just a few each month. But did it fit my criteria? Yes. So I began to ask questions about how I could re-connect with all the schools I've previously performed at...

Performing at colleges is another area of immense opportunity. I had just started to break into that market 5 years ago or so when I discovered NLP and shifted my focus to that...But certainly college students would not only be open to music but they could benefit hugely from "The Way of the Modern Jedi"...

Performing at festivals and local acoustic music venues had been something I'd been "gonna do" for a while...there's a lot less money in that market and having a high rent made me look elsewhere. With less overhead, less pressure. Time to make contact...

Now here's the interesting piece, does this decision to truly "surrender" to my music and "honor" my creative work stop me from practicing NLP?

No! It actually makes it more possible because every where I go as a performer I can share my story of how I was able to overcome my performing anxiety with NLP! AND since I have written so many songs influenced by NLP sharing that fact wherever I go and inviting those interested in learning more about NLP could easily and effortlessly spread that work in a congruent way.

Wherever I share my story from the stage of crushing anxiety and the stories of the many people I've helped to overcome their own anxiety without drugs or endless therapy through NLP, people can see for themselves the result. So it just may be a more effective way to get the word out...

So that's just a bit of the process going on over here with me. It all started with asking some powerful questions.

What's more important is, what are your thoughts? What questions are you asking yourself at the close of this year?

Please feel free to share some of your questions below.

In case you need some help with questions try these on for size:

• If I had only 6 months to live how would I spend my time?
• What's one simple thing can I do today to live fully and abundantly?
• Why does it work out better than I can possibly imagine?
• What resources do I need to attract to myself so that I can truly make a positive difference in the world?
• What would be the most rewarding thing to do?
• How can I have fun today?
• How can I live fully today?
• How can I ask for help?
• Who can I ask for help?
• What am I grateful for today?

Please let me know your thoughts and comments below.

thanks!

- Mark

p.s. BTW as a result of my last post and being willing to ask for help and willing to admit that "I don't always have all the answers" a good friend of mine offered me a place to stay for 3-6 months. another friend offered me a place to store my stuff. Another friend appeared who has all the administrative and logistical skills/aptitudes that would enable me to truly focus on what I'm good at...Is work involved? yes. Does it scare me to move out of my comfort zone? yes. But it also feels positive and exciting!

The question that I ask the most is: "Why does it work out better than I can possibly imagine?"

Try it! Write it out long hand!

So what is is for you? The stick? Or the carrot? Or some combination of both? What gets you motivated?

Have you ever stopped to think about the process of motivation? How do you know it's time to get motivated to do something? Have you ever felt a lack of motivation and then suddenly something shifted and you got a jolt of energy?

In NLP we do quite a bit of work with helping people to overcome procrastination and engage their motivation strategies. In fact the discovery that we actually have unconscious strategies (or programs) that we "run" in different situations to create behavior is one of the key distinctions that makes NLP so much fun. It's also part of why we NLP'ers are considered "rogues" by traditional psychology.

Think about it this way. How do you know it's time to be motivated? Or even better, when you are motivated how do you even know you are? Is it something you feel? See? Hear?

Can you remember a time when you were motivated? A specific time? As you recall that time, do you have a picture? What about a feeling somewhere in your body? Do you have any sounds or music that kick in? Are you saying something to yourself or can you remember someone else saying something to you?

Assuming you have a picture, what happens if you take that picture and shrink it down and push it far away and make it really dark and tiny out on the edge of the horizon?

Chances are you don't feel so motivated any more do you?

Now bring that picture back in at 100 miles an hour and make it big and bright right in front of you. More motivated or less? Typically people feel more motivated by doing that.

The point of this short exercise is to demonstrate the power of your MIND and the ability each and every one of us has to affect our inner world.

So today think about that.

Tomorrow we'll explore what the big deal is about "moving away from" vs. "moving towards"...

To see my new music video "Motivation" click this link

Please help me start a Modern Jedi NLP Mind Mastery Revolution! Leave a comment or question. "Stumble" or "Digg" or "Twitter" this.