Mark Shepard NLPT - Master Practitioner & Trainer of NLP, Hypnosis & Time Line Therapy (tm)
Not too long ago, Len Caiafa dropped by and I grabbed the opportunity to chat with him on camera about NLP and how he’s used some of the tools he learned at my Reluctant Sales Person Seminar and some thoughts in general about using nlp in business and as a sales professional. BTW len is the guy that said to me, “Mark this NLP stuff is kind of like Modern Jedi Mind Mastery!” So I owe Len a definite debt of gratitude for that.
What to do when the people you care about express their care for you by giving you advice that is clearly a projection of their fears and doubts…
I don’t know if this happens to you at all or if I’m the only one.
I take risks. I believe that in order to truly live my dream I have to put new ideas and tools into action. Sometimes it works out right away. Other times things take a lot longer than it looked like it was going to take. This is NOT failure. It is feedback.
For example: When I finished my NLP trainers training in the Summer of 2003 I thought that I would be teaching my first NLP practitioner course the following month.
It took me something like 5 years to achieve that goal.
Not because I was sitting around watching TV and wasting my time, but because there seemed to be some higher, wiser plan in effect. In order for me to be a congruent trainer, I had to first get some real life experience working with clients of all kinds. Perfect (in retrospect).
But to the people in my life at the time, my lack of earning power IMMEDIATELY after the big training was proof that I was a fool. NLP was supposed to suddenly enable me to start making big bucks right away. And I have seen people’s incomes skyrocket right after an NLP session or a training.
But for me, for my particular life’s purpose of integrating my music and my personal development work, it wasn’t an instant catapault to fame and riches.
Somehow I managed to make it through those first lean months and began to build a practice.
There was so much I didn’t know about marketing, and business. So much I had to learn “on the job”. Because I was so focused on building my practice, I didn’t do as much to get Music/Storytelling gigs that year… so my income actually went down even though I was feeling like I was on track with implementing my goals.
Working towards living my dreams.
Well, as the old saying goes, “Success is Messy”
In the last year or so as I’ve been putting new ways of doing business into practice, getting the word out on the Web. It’s been a huge learning curve, one that has often required 100% of my attention and energy.
If anyone looked in at certain points along this path it might seem to an outside that I was chasing after some “pie in the sky” dream. I am chasing a dream. But it’s not “pie in the sky”.
My dream is to create steady and increasing income from the many areas I’m interested in and passionate about in a way that contributes positively to the lives of others.
NLP, Sales training, storytelling, music, hypnosis, art, personal development, healing, creativity, education, leadership, motivation, Time Line therapy techniques ™ relationships, transformation and on and on. It’s a multi-dimensional approach that sometimes defies “branding”.
I once had a conversation with a business man who had been very successful as a mortgage broker. At some point he had decided to build a company with other mortgage reps working for him. At first, his income went down because he was no longer writing deals. Eventually as he brought more and more mortgage reps on board and he earned a percentage of each rep’s volume, his income soared.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that in any endeavor that is true and congruent for you, there will be times when your family members or friends will try to give you advice. Unfortunately their advice will come from their model of the world which may be an old framwork for you that you are letting go of.
You must acknowledge their loving intention and appreciate it. However, you must also ignore their advice and continue to move beyond it. Even if it causes a temporary rift in the relationship.
Dreams are fragile at certain stages of their fulfillment. Stay with it. Keep doing what you know is right and true. Turn down the noise and the distractions around you and burn the boats. There is no returning to the way you used to be. Sometimes it takes longer to get to where you want to be. So what?
Every outcome that does not look like success is an opportunity to put another piece of the puzzle into place. Eventually it will come together.
Am I saying ignore solid, advice from people who truly know what they’re talking about in fields that are similar or related to what you are trying to accomplish? No. Other entrepreneurs or other people in your field who have done what you are attempting to do, have earned the right to give you guidance. I am only talking about people who have been employees all their life giving an entrepreneur advice about how to run his business.
Just like I know very little about ice skating and would never dream to give an ice skater advice about how to do a leap or a spin, people who trade hours for dollars or who are not able to tolerate the uncertainty of being in business (or sales) haven’t earned the right to give advice in this area. Are they bad people. No! Their intention is one of love and care and concern. It can still wreak havoc with your self confidence if you are going through some tough challenges.
What you do freaks them out and scares the hell out of them. That’s why they are chained to a steady paycheck. Sometimes in the entrepreneurial or artistic journey there are times when the cash flow just isn’t there. Those are moments of your greatest opportunity.
Worrying about someone based upon the false belief that imagining the worst and trying to protect your loved ones from their mistakes is the worst kind of projection.
For 40 years I’ve been pursuing a dream of using my music to positively impact the world. That journey has led me in a lot of different directions, first working on my self and my internal blocks and next learning how to reach out to other people in ways that may be non-traditional. The learning curve has been steep and at times breathtakingly difficult. Every step of the way, no matter how challenging, has been perfect and exactly what I was ready to tackle next.
Step by step. Goal by goal. Putting my plan into action.
Have those accomplishments resulted in a steady stream of income? Not yet. Have they touched lives in a postive way? Yes.
Am I on track? Yes. Am I as much a household name as Tony Robbins? Net yet. Do I always know how I’m going to pay this month’s bills? Nope.
Necessity is the mother of invention. Our backs are to the sea, the boats have been burned. There is nowhere to go but forward into the unknown.
So dare to dream folks. Dare to take action to fulfill your dream. Dare to find mentors to model yourself after. Dare to lovingly ignore the advice of parents, relatives, friends or anyone else who doesn’t “get” what you are all about.
Dare to believe in yourself even when outside events seem to conspire to get you to doubt.
Feed the Faith. Starve the Doubt. You gotta have some trust that it all works out…(better than you can possibly imagine)
Just in case you need a little motivation…
Please leave a comment below or share this with someone who many need your support today!
- Mark
Hi mark I am wondering before you do swish patterns and other NLP techniques, don’t we really have to clear our fears with the Timeline Therapy Techniques™?
When we worked together 1:1 and I was able to allow joy to come in my life for the first time, it was a good start but my other issues about living life and business issues are still coming up.
When a fear comes up should I do Timeline on myself with the issue to get it clear first? In other words what is the checklist to follow for tools to use when a fear arises that is holding me back? I feel at this point I should be able to use the tools I am learning in your course and what I picked up at our breakthrough session .
I really understand that we are the only ones that can cure ourselves. Thanks so much.
-Name Witheld
An important Key to NLP Success: As long as we’re alive stuff will come up. It’s like your Unconscious Mind “gets” that it can release stuff now and so it keeps offering up new “layers” to be addressed. I also want to remind us all that when we do make a major shift to not discount it or negate it just because there is still more work to do. There will always be more to shift. That why it’s so cool to have a wide choice of NLP tools to choose from.
I find that when I clear something with timeline it typically stays cleared if I have gotten the root cause event. Sometimes, I’ve had to go back and clear a slightly different limiting decision that seemed to have the same root cause.
I prefer to do time line therapy techniques ® to clear the limiting decision and chain of negative emotions first. Then I’ll use the swish pattern to “program” the new response I want into my neurology. If you do a Swish pattern enough times it’s cool because the old negative “knee-jerk” trigger will now bring up the desired state or picture.
It’s hard to give a “check-list” of first do a. then b. then c. I tend to follow my intuition with what to do when.
What I love about NLP, Hypnosis, Time Line and EFT is that I can do a lot of things on my own to clear stuff that comes up at the moment it gets in my face. That’s one reason I truly believe in teaching my clients how to take charge of their own change rather than see me as the “curer” or “healer”. That said, sometimes though we just can’t get enough leverage on our selves to shift something. At those moments it can save a lot of time and angst to get help from a trained practitioner of NLP.
In those cases, I find it a lot easier to have someone else do it with me. That’s yet another benefit of the NLP Training because you not only learn how to do the NLP techniques on your own for yourself and for other people, but you actually get to take turns with the other students in being the “client” in our 4 day bootcamp. So you can clear a lot of your own stuff in the process of learning NLP. You also make friends with other people who “get” you and who are interested in clearing their own issues and blocks. So it makes a lot of sense to come to the training and then do trades afterward with the students you meet.
If I’m in a moment of “challenge” and I just need to shift something immediately, I use EFT. I tap and speak the “set up phrase” LOUDLY! It seems the more emotion I have towards clearing something the more powerful EFT tapping is. If you’d like to learn more about EFT click here: Get a free EFT Starter package
Here’s an example:
“Even though I thought I’d cleared this @#^&*$%!@$*%$!@# problem, I deeply and completely accept myself!”
I do a couple rounds unashamedly focusing on the problem and wallowing loudly in the whiny victim mode as much as I want while tapping the EFT acupressure points. I have so much fun with this that often that’s enough to snap me out of my funk!
Then I start feeding in positive how and why questions like:
“Even though I haven’t yet found and released the root cause event of this challenge, why do I deeply and completely accept myself?”
Finally I just tap on
“Why do I deeply and completely accept myself and why does it work out better than I can possibly imagine?”
“Why do I love myself? Why do I attract all the resources and assistance I need to clear this once and for all?”
Why do I resolve this in a way that’s even better than I can possibly imagine?”
etc.
Usually EFT clears pretty much everything from headaches to limiting beliefs.
If it doesn’t do the job for a particular issue I will next use swish patterns and other NLP submodalities techniques to get relief.
If I’m still not shifting the issue, then I will call one of my students/colleagues and get them to do Time Line Therapy with me. Sometimes I can do Time line by myself but I tend to space out and drift off unless someone is there keeping me on track.
Depending upon the issue, when I can’t get enough leverage on my “stuff” by myself, I call Joann Dunsing or Joe Schroder or Kathy McAfee or Kim Kasperian.
Remember that Tiger Woods has a coach and Michael Jordan had a coach. One of my greatest and most humbling lessons is that sometimes it saves a lot of time and money to get with someone who can get you the results you can’t always get on your own.
I have even just handed the Time Line Therapy™ script to someone who knew nothing about it and just had them read the damn thing. It worked like a charm because it kept me on task. The script doesn’t do the clearing, we do. So as you learn various techniques approach using them on your own issues or “stuff” with an attitude of wanton curiosity and playfulness.
I hope that answered the question and was helpful for those of you who are working to “Defeat The Dark Side In Your Personal And Professional Life. Master Your Mind For A Change with NLP!” 
)
Why does it work out better than you can possibly imagine?
-Mark Shepard, NLPT
Certified Master Practitioner and Trainer of NLP, Hypnosis & Time Line Therapy™
p.s. Any questions or comments? Leave them below. Please pass this post along on Twitter, or Facebook or StumbleUpon etc.
One of the contributions of NLP to the world of communication excellence is the process I call “Magical Rapport”.
You know that feeling you get when you “click” with another person or you just met them but you feel like you’ve known them forever? That’s rapport. We all do it all the time unconsciously when we are connecting with another person. The most typical way we approach it is to talk and find things in common. “so, where are you from?” “How many children do you have” etc. But the founders of NLP discovered that we do tons of other things that we don’t have the foggiest notion we’re doing, like matching and mirroring physiology and tonality (among other secret stuff)…
So NLP didn’t invent rapport, it just brought the unconscious process up into conscious awareness so that we could do it more often and with greater effectiveness. It would take me hours to share all the stories of how I’ve been able to build deep and lasting business and personal friendships rapidly. Suffice it to say that people like to do business with people they like.
We cover rapid rapport building fully in the Modern Jedi NLP On-Line/Hands-On Training. If you’re business or relationships could use a boost you might want to join us (there’s still time)
One of my NLP students who is a law enforcement professional asked a really good question and I wanted to answer it here on my blog so that all my students as well as those of you who are passionate about NLP could have a chance to hear my answer as well as to make a comment or share an experience you might have had with Rapport building.
I had a question regarding rapport. When someone is displaying negative emotions such as defensive, angry or some other type of negative behavior, would mirroring or matching be counterproductive because of how the other person may interpret their behavior being matched or mirrored?My concern was that because so much of communication is non-verbal this may only inflame an already negative situation. Or would mirroring and matching help to “sync” in with that person and once rapport is established you are now able to more effectively move the person away from those negative behaviors. I could see both being applicable but on a case by case situation. I would like to get your take on this as well as if it is a case by case situation what would be examples of when each would be appropriate.
Also are there more subtle rapport techniques within mirroring/matching that could be used such as only eye blinks or other less noticeable techniques like cross matching, etc…- Mike L.
When someone is angry or depressed we want to connect with them in a way that will enable them to feel heard and understood without getting pulled into their state. If you use the typical rapport skills of matching and mirroring words, tonality, and physiology with an angry person you will almost be guaranteed to get angry..However there is nothing more infuriating to an angry person than dealing with someone who remains totally calm in the face of his/her anger. What we found in NLP was that if you mirror back the angry person’s tonality but say concilatory words, you will be able to connect enough so that the person can begin to hear you. Then once you’ve estabilished rapport, you can begin to gradually change your tonality and lead them into a calmer state..With someone who is depressed you could also match their typically softer quieter tonality while beginning to use words of more positive and hopeful outlook..Once we establish rapport we can test it to make sure we maintain it. Whenever we encounter resistance we need to go back and develop more rapport..We can also use a technique called Crossover matching and mirroring, using one body part like a finger, to match the upset person’s eye blinks or foot tapping..
Got an e-mail from Josh Kronlund this morning.
Josh is one of the students in the new Modern Jedi NLP On-Line/Hands-On Certification Course. I wanted to share his comments with you all as well as answer his questions and invite those of you who are still interested in learning NLP to “Defeat the Dark Side and Master Your Mind For A Change For Less Than A Latte.” )
The course is ridiculously cheap and set up to be a “do-it-at-your-own-pace” program.
Join us! Check it out Here: Modern Jedi NLP Trainings
The On-Line portion of the course is complimented by a Hands-On “Boot-Camp August 6-9, 2009 in the New Haven CT area. At the Boot-Camp we’ll take all the “foundation concepts” learned virtually and put them into practical use. Location is still TBD but we’ll be firming that up soon.
2009 NLP Bootcamp Up-Date: the Next Modern Jedi NLP Bootcamp will be Thursday, November 12 thru Sunday, November 15 in the New Haven, CT area.
2010 NLP Bootcamp Up-Date: SOMEWHERE WARM!
Here’s Josh’s e-mail:
Hi Mark,
First, I would like to thank you for you products, they have been pretty awesome and I can’t seem to get enough of NLP. In fact, it has helped so much, so fast, that at first, my wife was a little skeptical. But now, she wants to go with me to the August workshop, how cool is that?!
Also, I appreciate all the comments you made on my blog. I have never done anything like that, and I am actually having fun answering the questions in the quiz and learning how to blog.
Lastly, could you send me some information on the workshop in August. I would like to start making plans to do that as well.
Sincerely,
Joshua Kronlund
Thanks Josh! I’m glad you are experiencing the benefits of this awesome NLP material! I get personally excited about it because it just rocks!
One of the options I give the course students is to answer their quizzes on their blog, thereby creating content (which the search engines love) and learning some of the basics of Web 2.0 marketing.
To answer your question Josh, the Hands-On NLP Bootcamp will be August 6-9 in the New Haven CT area. The closest airport is Tweed Airport (just 5 minutes away). USAir links up to Tweed via Philadelphia.
The next closest is Bradley Airport near Hartford (about 45 minutes away) which is much larger. I’ve flown a number of times on Southwest out of Bradley.
Then of course there are the New York airports which have a lot more flights but are a definite challenge to get to during peak rush hour times.
Hope that helps.
I will hopefully firm up the location by next week.
- Mark
p.s. Want to know why I answered Joshua Kronlund’s e-mail here on my blog? Prior to this post when I googled Josh his blog did not come up on the first page of google. By the time Josh is done with the course a by product of his participation will be a much higher placement on google. While I can’t guarantee a first page placement. It’s kind of fun to see what we can do by doing just a few things differently. Essentially NLP is and attitude of wanton curiosity and willingness to experiment and pay attention to what works and what doesn’t. What works, we do more of!
So just for fun, in a week or so google Josh Kronlund or Josh Kronlund NLP and see what happens!
UPDATE 09/24/09
Check out what happens when you google “Josh Kronlund NLP”
Josh comes up on the 1st page not just once but several times. The point? When you take the Modern Jedi NLP course and choose to answer your quizzes on your blog, it will help you create a presence on line that could make a positive difference in your NLP career as well as your “day job”. Here are the screen shots:
Screen Shot 1
josh kronlund nlp
Screen shot 2
josh kronlund nlp student
For a little taste of the training play the audio mp3 below from the Modern Jedi NLP Certification Live Training audios.
I start the NLP Training program off with a number of nested story loops inspired by the teaching tales of Milton Erickson …enjoy!
Want to learn more? Since the new On-Line/Hands-On NLP course is designed for you to go at your own pace you can still join our current class! Defeat the Dark Side in Your Personal or Professional Life. Master Your Mind For A Change with NLP (For less than a latte)
Click here to discover: Modern Jedi NLP Trainings
How I used NLP to Stop Being Shy in about 10 minutes:
Learn More About Mark Shepard’s Modern Jedi On-line/Hands-on NLP Training
“Defeat the Dark Side in your personal and professional Life. Master Your Mind For A Change in 17 minutes a day for less than a Latte.”
Watch this video and let me know!
I need to know because I’ve re-invented my Modern Jedi NLP Certification Training. I’ve redesigned it so that you can get the massive benefits of applying Modern Jedi Mind mastery to the challenges in your life or work without having to invest a huge chunk of time or a huge chunk of money.
The new multi-media online course will be delivered to you in easily digestible bites each week so you can learn from the comfort of your own home.
And right now you can’t even sign up yet.
I just need a show of hands so I have an idea of how many of you are interested in defeating the dark side in your life or work and mastering your mind for a change
I’m still working out the logistics so I just need to know if you’re interested.
So if you’re interested just leave a comment below or e-mail me at modernjedi[at]gmail.com you can even call me personally at 203-495-8808.
I know you’re wondering what the details are and that’s a good thing!
Learn More about the Modern Jedi Online NLP Training and Join Us!
One of the major techniques of NLP is something called reframing. Essentially it is a way to take any limiting belief or behavioral pattern and turn it around in such a way that the persone either has an “aha” moment or it causes the problem to disappear entirely.
The reason reframing can be so powerful is that few people are aware of how strongly language affects our experience of what we call “reality”. By changing the “frame” around a problem it doesn’t just give you a new perspective (although that’s certainly part of it), it can actually make a profound and observable neurological shift.
I had done a series on NLP reframing in my newsletter sometime last year and it was picked up on by a couple of guys in Ohio, Aaron Torres and Paul Binkley who have been learning NLP on their own and practicing it’s applications at the auto factory they work in.
I hadn’t heard from these guys for a while and was delighted to get an e-mail from Paul Binkley with another great story. So here it is in it’s entirely with Paul’s permission. Thank you Paul! I definitely look forward to doing an NLP Certification in Ohio soon!
Please note: I’ve added a few comments in red to give you a little insight into what Paul is doing outside of conscious awareness.
Mark,
Long time no see. Thanks for the ongoing email and updates about your work.I had an opportunity this week to help a coworker reframe a major life circumstance. and I thought you would like to hear about it, partly because it is a success story of mind over matter and because I had the presence of mind to offer it, in part, because of your invaluable contribution to my own perspectives on life, the universe, and everything.
A female coworker, 33yrs old apx., confided in me how angry she was that her mother, whom she asked to watch her dogs while she was away for the day, upset her greatly for about the millionth time over the same issue of playing favorites among her three daughters.
It seems that my coworker had left $30 for her mother to order her favorite pizza with everything on it while she watched the dogs at her (my coworkers) house.
Her mother, not wanting to spend the day alone, invited her favorite daughter over to her not so favorite daughters (my coworker) house, to keep her company.
This is where the problem begins.
The mother, desiring to bless her favorite daughter, gave the $30 to her favorite daughter instead of buying her favorite pizza for herself.
My coworker on hearing this, was outraged.
She went on to present to me all manor of evidences supporting her claim that her sister is her mothers favorite child ( they were many and convincing proofs). We often have major amounts of “evidence” for why a certain belief or perception is true. And then started telling how her sister (the favored) was totally dependent on their mother for everything and made no effort to have a life outside of her dependency on their mother, and how her mother was also equally her mothers ( my coworkers grandmother) favorite and just as insanely dependent on her to do everything for her.
She went on to explain how her mother does nothing for her own benefit to a point of serious health risk from obesity, attributing this to her dependency on her mother.
She nearly cried while confiding that her mother, during a day long visit on Christmas day, had not used the restroom all day and stank of urine.
When her mother got up to get something to eat, my coworker noticed a folded towel on her mothers chair, which she first mistook as an added padding then, on inspection, realized her mother had urinated on the folded towel.
The thought that her mother would employ such a method to circumvent needing to visit the restroom, grieved my coworker profoundly. I would like to mention that her mother is not reported to have any health condition relating to bladder control.
Harder to believe than the above:
Here’s the underlying Limiting Decision:
My coworker admits that her own sense of self worth, her practiced state of mind, is dominated by her interpretation that she is less of a person because she is not her mothers favorite.Here’s what she’s not seeing about herself. This is currently outside of her conscious awareness:
My coworker is about the hardest working, self-sufficient, commonsense, take care of business person I work with (outside of Aaron Torres of course). She is nothing like her mother or her sister or her grandmother.Here Paul is associating her into the problem in order to “light up the neurological net”:
I asked her to imagine what her life would be like she were her mother’s favorite. She couldn’t do it.I suggested she(if she were the favorite) would be as pitifully helpless as her sister. How would she like that?
She convulsed with disgust at the thought. The fact that she convulsed with disgust at the thought is proof that she is indeed associated into that experience. When we say “associated” we mean that the person is looking through their own eyes in their internal representation of the situation. they are “in” it.
I told her that the next time her mother favors her sister over her she should thank God that she is not under the generational curse of being mothers favorite.
“I never thought of it that way” she said. Exactly!
I went on to thank God out loud ) quite loudly) right there on the spot that she was not her mothers favorite(note the embedded message). Paul is also using this person’s model of the world. If he was talking to an atheist or a new ager he might not thank God he might say it in a different way. For the Atheist he might say “Thank Goodness!” for the spiritual but not religious peron he might say “Thank the Universe.” It’s all about speaking the language of the person you’re working with
The grimace she had been wearing all day turned to a beaming smile. The great thing about NLP is using our sensory acuity skills we can actually look at another person and see the shift. In other words we can get immediate feedback as to whether something worked or not. Sometimes it’s a subtle color shift other times it’s pretty noticeable. If we get the shift great! if we don’t get the shift, “there’s no failure, there’s only feedback” and we simply try a different approach.
I reiterated the suggestion to say out loud to herself how thankful she is to not be the favorite, next time she recognizes the hideous manifestation of favoritism disease. Speaking the phrase out loud creates an auditory and physiological anchor so that the shift can be “locked in” to her neurology and made available for re-triggering the new insight whenever it’s reinforcement is needed. Also, labeling the old problem as “Favoritism disease” links the old thought pattern in a powerful way to a disease which locks in an “away from” strategy unconsciously.
She said she would.
God bless,
Paul
special thanks to Paul Binkley for sharing this story! Any other examples out there of powerful reframes? ether leave a comment here or e-mail me directly with your own stories and experiences at mark [at] markshepard.com
Please “Digg” or “Stumble” or “Facebook” or “Twitter” this! Thanks!
Mark
p.s. to learn more about NLP and how you can use it to “reframe” your own “problems” into “opportunities” visit Modern Jedi NLP Training
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