Steve will introduce a videotaped segment from last August’s Advanced Mastery Training, “Transforming Troublesome Voices” and then discuss it. Since Hypnosummit is an online conference, you can join it no matter where you are—and view it when it is convenient for you.  Steve’s presentation will be about an hour in length. He will be one of many presenters. For full information, and to register:
http://www.hypnosummit.com/

Psychotherapy Networker Symposium, Washington DC. March 27-28

On the morning of March 27, Steve will be presenting on “Altering Your Inner Trash Talker,” offering a variety of ways to make very rapid changes in troublesome internal voices.  He will be drawing from his e-book, Help for Negative Self-Talk, vol 1 which offers a wealth of material on this subject: http://www.realpeoplepress.com/pages.php?page=selftalkebook

On March 28, Steve will be presenting “Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) the Current State of the Art” both morning and afternoon: For full information, click below:

For additional trainings, see Steve Andreas’ training schedule:
http://www.steveandreas.com/workshopsched.html

Registration has just opened for the second Advanced Mastery Training—August 1-7, 2010 in Boulder, Colorado. Specially designed for NLP Master Practitioners who want to go beyond their current level of mastery, this training offers a unique opportunity to learn leading-edge models and methods as part of a wonderful community of fellow learners and explorers.

For years I’ve had a vision of a training which would gather some of NLP’s most creative and innovative trainers into the same training room at the same time, to provide multiple perspectives on advanced topics in a room of skilled participants. With the help of 47 colleagues, 3 Trainers, and our Coordinator Team, we began to unfold this possibility last year. This year we plan to build on the foundation laid—amplifying those aspects that worked well last year to bring you an even more dynamic and enriching learning experience.

This year’s training highlights…

• All-New Content.
• 3 New Trainers and a 5-trainer team. We are pleased to have international trainers Nick Kemp (UK), Danie Beaulieu (Canada), and Lucas Derks (Holland), along with returning trainers Andy Austin (UK), and Steve Andreas (US).
• 7 Full Days (one day longer than last year).
• Each Trainer will be sharing in-depth knowledge of the gems of his/her recent work. Plus we’ll be continuing the practice of live client-session demonstrations with people who have no background in NLP.

…all at less than half the price of some “7-day NLP Practitioner” courses!

Last year’s training was inspiring, rejuvenating, and deepening.  Here’s what some of our community had to say about it…

“I really loved this training. (And I’ve done lots of trainings!) Fantastic content. Good challenges for us advanced students.”
—Suzanne Scott, California

“Thank you for one of the most inspiring, educational, well organized, amazing trainings in my life. This training had definite WOW factor due to excellent presentations of new material and new angles on familiar processes. It made a difference that only experienced participants attended. This meant there was not only food for thought from the trainers, but the other participants as well. … I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. This was a big investment for me, and I have reaped rewards already. I look forward to working with Tools For Transforming again.”
—Hariata Hema, New Zealand

“I had a fabulous time—I deepened both my knowledge and skills. I learned some new material and ways of working. I watched/observed some masters. I met some new friends. I also experienced a significant personal change. Yes indeed, I had a ball. Worth every single cent and two 23 hour plane journeys. I’d go back tomorrow.”
—Paul Tracey, Ireland

Although this is an advanced training, last year we greatly appreciated the “beginner’s mind” with which our community of learners came together to explore and learn with ample fun and laughter. To see video excerpts from last year’s training, watch this:

“You’ve got to ac-cen-tuate the positive,
E-lim-inate the negative,
Latch on to the affirmative,
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.”
Lyrics by Johnny Mercer (1944)

From time to time we need to sort through an accumulation of things in order to make space for what we want to keep. However, many people have great difficulty doing this. Would you like to learn a ridiculously simple trick to make this easier?

When most people do this, they look through their closet full of clothes, the drawer full of socks, or the shelf full of books, and try to decide what they don’t want. While this seems very logical and straightforward, there are several reasons why it’s not the best way to accomplish the task.

Imagine that you went to a grocery store to buy some food, and you were focused on what you don’t want. Pause for a moment to imagine actually doing this in your mind, to find out what this way of shopping would be like for you. . . .

Doesn’t that seem a little backward? Now imagine shopping the way you usually do it, by focusing on what you do want. . . .

Whether you have a list of things that you have already decided that you want, or whether you look around to see what appeals to you (or both), focusing on what you do want is much simpler and more direct.

There are probably only a few things that you do want, and an immense number of things that you don’t want. If you were focused on eliminating what you don’t want, it would take you much longer, because there is so much more of it that you would have to process.

You have only a certain amount of attention; if you are focused on what you don’t want, you have much less attention for what you do want, and you might even lose track of it altogether, which is what happens in paranoia.

Perhaps most important, if you are focused on what you don’t want, you will be having the feelings that go along with thinking of those things. Those feelings are likely to be much less pleasant than the ones you have when you think of what you do want. Try this in you imagination. First think of a food that you don’t want, . . . and then think of a food that you do want. . . .

Which feels better? If you think of what you do want, you will feel better, and you are likely to keep on shopping. But if you are having the feelings that go with thinking of all those things that you don’t want, you are likely to stop soon, so that you can feel better!

So far I have written about what you do want and what you don’t want. But there is another category of stuff that is even larger than both of these put together; stuff that you don’t much care about one way or another—“Mister In-Between.” When you focus your attention on what you do want, all this is ignored along with all the stuff that you don’t want.

To summarize, if you are deciding what to buy in a store, it makes a lot more sense to focus on what you do want than what you don’t want. It is also much simpler to do, because it is harder for us to process negations like “don’t” (“do not”).

Now let’s go back to the task of sorting through an accumulation to decide what you want to keep. All the factors I have discussed above are equally true when you want to sort through stuff. If you focus on what you don’t want, it will be more difficult, less direct, it will take longer, and it feels unpleasant, so you will probably soon give up and do something else—perhaps berating yourself for your sloppiness and “lack of willpower” or “lack of persistence.”

How can we apply the way that we naturally and efficiently acquire stuff to the task of discarding stuff?

It’s absurdly simple: empty out that closet, drawer, or bookshelf completely and put everything that was in it somewhere else. Now imagine that this is stuff in a store, and you can select what you want from it—absolutely free! Now look through it to decide what you want to keep, and discard the rest of it.

There is an additional advantage to this way of sorting through stuff in order to simplify and streamline your surroundings. If you were successful in doing what most people do—focusing on what you don’t want, and discarding that, you would still have all the stuff that is meaningless to you—“Mister In-Between.” But by selecting what you do want from that pile of stuff, all the “Mister In-Between” stuff remains in the pile to be discarded.

If you are someone who likes to keep “in between” stuff around for a while in case it might become useful, put it in a box, and date it. If you haven’t looked at it after a given length of time—perhaps six months or a year—look through it quickly to be sure there is nothing you want to keep, and then dispose of it.

Another little trick I use is to think of who would be happy to have the stuff that I’m discarding. Even though I don’t have a use for it, it might be important to someone else; the thought that someone else might appreciate it gives me additional pleasure at the thought of passing it on to someone else, making it even easier to let go of it.

This is only one specific application of the importance of focusing your attention on positive outcomes—what you do want, rather than what you don’t want—a key element of NLP, and of living a life that works for you.

Do you have other strategies or “tricks” that make it easier for you to clean stuff out? If so, I welcome you to add them to this discussion.

Now you can have access to this specially-designed Post-Master Practitioner NLP Training. The three main trainers, Andrew T. Austin, Steve Andreas, and Steven Watson, were all present during the entire training, so each was aware of the others’ work, enabling them to link what they taught to each others’ training, respond, and comment. Charles Faulkner also presented one evening.

Find out what made Participants in the 2009 Advanced Mastery Training so pleased with their experience.

Click here to Find Out More about what you’ll get in this DVD training.

Watch Sample Clips from the videos.

It is a busy time of year for most of us, and for many it can be a curious mixture of good times and more stressful ones. I offer you a few of my favorite quotations to guide you and sustain you through the holiday season:

“Be yourself; everyone else is taken.”
—Oscar Wilde

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
—Annie Dillard

“Let us live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.”
—Mark Twain

Plan as if you’ll live forever:
Live as if you’ll die tomorrow.

An interviewer asked a famous song writer:
“Of all the songs that you have written, what is your favorite?”
The songwriter replied, “The next one.”

“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
—Mary Oliver

“Life is too short for drama and petty things.
So kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly, and forgive quickly.”

For those who may have a little more time to explore a perennial question…

“What is the meaning of life?”

This is a question that people have been asking for at least several thousand years, and probably much longer, because human beings seek meaning. Most people have assumed that the question is well-formed, and tried to answer it. And the number and variety of answers—most of which do not agree with each other—is truly astounding. However, the question has a number of linguistic elements that are misleading, and it omits other elements that would make the question answerable.

The most serious omission is that the word “meaning” has no object. Meaning for whom?” My wife has meaning for me, but she does not have any meaning for a rock because the rock isn’t even aware of her. The rock can have meaning for her, but not the other way around. Likewise my life has meaning for her, but not for the rock. Meaning requires a sentient being for whom something, or someone, can have meaning.

Now let’s examine the word “life.” Does it mean all life? If it means all life, then the question is not answerable, because meaning always has to have a “for whom” in order to exist, and “all life” doesn’t leave any living thing for which “all life” could have meaning.

If the word “life” means certain categories of life, then we can determine meaning if we answer the “for whom?” Wheat plants mean food to me, and disease bacteria certainly have a very different meaning for me if they make me sick.

If the word “life” means your individual life, then you can answer it even more easily, because even the most isolated hermit relates to someone else now and then, providing a context for life to have meaning for someone else.

The most misleading word is the little word “the” which presupposes that your life has only one meaning. My life has many meanings to many different people, at many different times. The meaning of my life for my wife, or one of our children, is very different than the meaning of my life for the mailman, or for a seminar participant, or a grocery store clerk. Just as many people and things and events have been meaningful to you, you have been meaningful to an enormous number of people over a long period of time.

So a much better question—one that is answerable—is, “How has my life had meaning for others?” The “meaning of your life” is a summation of all the meanings that you have had for all the people you have interacted with throughout your life.

This may seem insignificant in comparison with the supreme transcendental meanings that many religions promise, but it is very real and tangible, and it can sustain you through difficulties. At the end of the Advanced Mastery Training in August I asked participants to close their eyes while I offered them a sort of meditation to make these intellectual ideas into a concrete experience that could make a difference in their lives.

You can download a free MP3 of this guided experience entitled “The Meanings of Your Life” here (right-click to download this 7.35MB file).

“It’s fairly easy to spot wrong answers; it’s often more difficult to spot wrong questions.”

This 6 minute audio clip comes from the Advanced Mastery Training. You can get the whole training here—cheaper than the cost of the training, and without the cost of travel and accommodations, or lost income. For full information on the Advanced Mastery Training, click here.

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