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I have just finished reading: The 168 Hour Week: Living Life Your Way 24/7 by Kevin Hogan. What a great book!
What I like about this book is that it tackles the REAL issues of time management. It’s all very well having well organised to-do lists or a matrix of urgent/important tasks or a nice system to get things done, but that’s not the issue. Most of us know what tasks we SHOULD be doing, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we do them! Why is that?
Dr Hogan’s practical understanding of human behaviour, the way we REALLY are, rather than the way we like to think we are, helps to answer this question, tackling such issues as motivation, procrastination, inertia, feelings, self sabotage, why goal setting rarely works, and understanding the value of your time. His coverage of procrastination is the most comprehensive I’ve seen and hits the nail on the head in terms of both how procrastination works and how to stop it.
Some of this book can make uncomfortable reading – the author quotes Dr. House (from the TV series): “People don’t change” and “Everybody lies”, and explains why this is mostly true and what to do about it! He talks about “5 Stupid Things People Do That Lead To Failure”. But I like the fact that Kevin doesn’t try to be politically correct or dress things up. He tells things as they are, warts and all, and backs up his assertions with facts.
Kevin Hogan then presents and explains in detail his system: See, Believe, Begin, Continue, Finish. This is written in a down to earth, entertaining and compelling way – again richly illustrated with all-to-familiar examples of “normal” human behaviour. It’s difficult to do this section justice in a review except to say that it is focused on how you can apply the system to you, and includes The Only Goal Setting System That Works, Getting What You Really Want and Shifting From Overwhelm To Productive.
The final section is really a workbook in which Kevin coaches you step by step through his system, no stone unturned. This I haven’t completed yet (the book has only just been published). But, having had a detailed look through: not completing this section would make this a thoroughly interesting book; completing this section may just change your life.
Martin
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The single most important thing you can do to dramatically improve your presentations is to have a story to tell.
I don’t necessarily mean you need entertaining and educational stories or metaphors to intersperse throughout the presentation (though these can add colour, memory hooks, authenticity and more). I mean the presentation as a whole should be a story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. As with every good story, it should be descriptive and vivid, attention grabbing, and informative.
 Stories follow natural patterns that accord with the way we think and communicate. The context will vary, as will the audience and the overall objective of the presentation (start with the end in mind), but even if it’s a business presentation I recommend you structure it as a story for maximum impact.
The good news is that telling a good story to an audience is a lot easier than making a “regular” presentation. It’s more engaging for you, as well as your audience, so it’s easier for you to remember and more natural for you to present.
Martin
Do you have a useful strategy for your business?
Do you have a useful strategy for YOU?
Over the years, I’ve worked with many companies, large and small, to help them develop and deliver useful business strategies. I’ve used many strategy frameworks, some complex and involved, and others refreshingly simple.
One of my favourite simple ways of helping to tease out an effective strategy is to focus on the following 3 criteria:
- Focus
- Divergence
- Compelling Tagline
Focus
Every great strategy has focus. Find your niche and focus on it. Outfocus your competitors. Don’t be tempted to spread yourself too thinly otherwise you’ll just be another notch on the internet bed post. What are you good at? What are you passionate about? What would you want to do even if you weren’t being paid/earning money for it? (If you’re that passionate you WILL make money)! You can have more than one niche, but make sure you nail the first one before you move on to the next.
Divergence
How are you different from your competitors? Is there any uncontested market space? How can you reach beyond existing demand and create and capture new demand? How can you make the competition irrelevant? Would you choose you if you were your potential customer?!
Compelling Tagline
A good strategy has a clear cut and compelling tagline that speaks to the market. It should be memorable, authentic and advertise your offering truthfully. What do you and/or your product/service REALLY stand for? What’s the underlying purpose of your offering? What do you want to be famous for? How would you convey your offering in a 5 second sound byte? Now, what’s on your website under your website name?!
Clearly I have work to do on my website. How about you?
Martin
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This is my first YouTube video. Most of you expert social networkers will have already seen it, but I thought it was worth a link from my blog.
In the real world, these 5 Power Postures are highly effective and are definitely worth being aware of and using in presentations, public speaking, negotiation, sales etc.
Here are some very brief reminder notes on each archetype:
1. Leveller
• Assertive, authoritative and calming
• Symmetrical physiology
• Palms down, hands forward, waist height
• Downward movement and spreading
• Voice tone down, slow, pause
• “Let me level with you”
2. Placator
• Vulnerable and agreeable, Pleading
• Symmetrical open physiology
• Palms up, Moving in an upward direction
• “I want to please you”
3. Blamer
• Confrontational, Brings energy up, Generally need to soften
• Literally pointing the finger
• Asymmetrical, Leaning forward
• “It’s your fault”
4. Computer
• Thinker pose
• Asymmetrical physiology
• Hand on chin or arms folded
• “I’m the authority because I know all the facts”
5. Distractor
• Diffuses energy (including Blamer!)
• Asymmetrical
• Angular, disjointed and incongruent
• “It’s nothing to do with me”
I will be doing more video at some stage, probably in shorter 3-5 minute segments.
Until next time.
Martin
Well it’s been a long wait for the Ship in a Bottle solution – longer than I thought it would be…but that just builds the suspense, doesn’t it?!
As a prelude…
People tend to forget that their thoughts are not reality, just their filtered interpretation of reality. This is sometimes described as “The map is not the territory” or “You can’t eat the menu”.
Similarly, when people encounter a problem, they often forget that they created the frame that created the problem in the first place. And as they’re living inside the frame, they can’t see a way out. This is the dilemma that causes so many people to be “stuck”.
Examples are:
- a person who hates their job who can’t motivate themselves to leave because they can’t imagine enjoying work
- a person who is depressed who can’t access happiness, which is just the resource they need to set them free from feeling depressed
- a person who has low self-esteem because they’re measuring themselves against their own unrealistically high standards
The answer is to create yourself a different frame.
Note that this is not “imagine it and it will come to pass”. It is about not constraining yourself with your own thoughts.
So to the Ship In Bottle solution…
As I clearly specified this was a “thought problem”, and you imagined the ship in the bottle in the first place…all you have to do is to imagine you got the ship out!!
Until next time
Martin
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Here’s a little thought puzzle (apologies if you’ve heard this before, but I like it):
- Imagine that you have one of those bottles with a ship inside
- How do you get the ship out of the bottle without breaking the bottle or collapsing the ship in any way?
Curious….?
Any ideas….?
Tune-in tomorrow for the answer!
Martin
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Today I thought I’d answer a couple of good questions arising from my last blog.
1. Katie commented that she was new to NLP, and what was its purpose, and where does the Swish pattern fit in?
My take on NLP is that it is a methodology for understanding how excellent people do what they do, and a toolkit for replicating this excellence in others or yourself. Within the toolkit there are techniques for reprogramming your mind. One (of many) of these techniques is the Swish pattern, which replaces a negative behaviour with a more resourceful one – more in line with how a model of human excellence would react! There are other techniques for changing your beliefs, changing likes to dislikes (e.g. potato crisps), walking on fire, slowing down time (helps when trying to hit a fast-pitched baseball) and more.
2. Kate asked whether the Swish pattern was like the balloon technique – where you tie something into a thought balloon and let it drift off?
My understanding of the balloon technique is that it is about dampening negative emotions through acceptance and symbolic “letting go”. The Swish pattern is about changing your automatic response to a particular situation by reprogramming your brain! It does this by anchoring resourceful “thoughts” (internal representations) to a trigger, which in the past would have produced an unresourceful state (and behaviour).
Hope this helps.
Martin
Right, let’s do some playing around with our visual representations to change an unwanted behaviour…. At last….!
Of course this really should be premium content only available to those who subscribe to my e-zine: “Afternoon tea with Martin Wright”…. Just joking, Kevin!!
This technique is based on a “pattern” from neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) called the “Swish” pattern.
Start by choosing a minor unwanted state or behaviour that you have that has a particular trigger e.g. “Whenever my wife/husband looks at me in a particular way, I feel bad”, “Whenever I’m under pressure to answer a question, I bite my nails”, “Whenever I’m on a first date, I feel tongue-tied”. This technique won’t work (on it’s own) for addictions – including smoking – so choose something small to start with.
Now change using the following steps. I suggest you read it through to get the hang of what you need to do, and then do it without the script.
- What’s the trigger?
- When and where does this happen?
- How do you know it’s time to … (eg. feel bad)?
- What do you see, hear immediately before get the feeling you don’t want?
- Now, when you think of that (State or Behaviour) do you have a picture?
- If necessary, adjust that picture so that you’re looking at the scene not as an observer but through your own eyes
- White-out the picture, and think what you going to have for tea tonight!
- What do you want to feel/do instead?
- What do you want? Not what you don’t want – What you want.
- How would you like to feel/act instead?
- What qualities, abilities, feelings will you have when you are the person for whom this is no longer a problem?
- What will you be thinking about when you’re no longer thinking about the problem?
- When you think of that (State or Behaviour) do you have a picture?
- Make it bigger and brighter until you are feeling great!
- Now step out of the picture so that you’re looking at the scene not through your own eyes but as an observer
- Set up the change
- Temporarily shrink the outcome picture until it is a little dot
- Place the dot in the middle of the trigger picture and see it in the middle of the trigger picture
- “SWISSSHHHH!”
- Now move the trigger picture, with the dot in it, away from you
- As it moves away notice that the trigger picture gets smaller and smaller and dimmer and dimmer until all you see is a little dot way way out on the horizon
- Now notice that dot can begin to move toward you, slowly at first, then accelerating explosively
- As it gets closer all you see is the picture of how you want to be getting bigger and brighter until all you see is you having achieved your outcome….. as quickly as…. SWISSSHHHH!
- Repeat
- Do this 5 times, with a break state in between (white-out the picture, and think of something else for a few moments)
- See the trigger picture with the dot that represents your outcome…….Move it all away……… and………. SWISSSHHHH!
- As you repeat you may notice how much faster your brain does this each time, the dot should be accelerating explosively towards you at least by the 3rd SWISSSHHHH!
- Test and Future Pace
- Now, try to get the old picture back and notice what happens
- [If you can get it back, repeat until you can't!]
- Think of an event in the future, an event which if it had happened in the past would have caused you to have had that old (Behaviour/State) and notice how it’s different now
Good luck! Let me know how you get on.
Martin
Photo credit – Angry
Photo credit – Happy
A quick recap:
We make meaning from the internal representations in our mind of our experiences (not from the experiences themselves). These internal representations are movies of our experiences, as seen through our filters. These movies are in 5-D with our internal commentary (self-talk) as a sixth dimension.
All 6 dimensions are important but, on a practical level, the simplest interventions to change behaviours work on the pictures in your mind – your visual representations.
So the question is: Can you see the pictures?
If not….then relax….close your eyes….and imagine seeing pictures….What colour is the outside of your front door….? Describe your bedroom as a child….the colour of the walls….your bed….your toys….your bedroom light….Now think of a recent time when you were really happy….feeling wonderful…. feeling unstoppable….Where were you….? What were you wearing – if anything!….? What was around you….? Describe in detail what you were seeing….
Now tell me you can’t see pictures!
Next post we may begin to look at how to change now…the pictures you don’t like!
In the meantime, here are some I like:
www.martin-wright.com
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Last blog I suggested that the inter-dependant combination of internal representations, state and physiology, at a point in time, will determine our behaviour, and therefore the results we get. I also suggested that our internal representations are the most flexible lever to align our behaviours to our goals.
Internal representations are a snapshot of our thoughts at a point in time, each comprising of a filtered version of the input from our senses. This can be thought of as a snapshot from a movie, a 5D movie (1 dimension for each sense). To this movie we tend overlay a commentary, commonly known as self-talk. This may be saying “This is impossible!” or “I’ll never be able to do this!” or “Why does it always happen to me!” or “This is easy” or “This is bloody brilliant” etc. So if we’re looking to change our internal representations in order to change our behaviours, we have 6 levers to pull.
So which is the best lever to pull? Well it turns out (generally speaking) that we get most leverage from what we visualise, feel and/or hear in our minds.
But HOW do we pull the levers I hear you cry!?
Well that depends…Can you see the pictures in your mind?
We’ll look at this, next post.
Aren’t I a tease!!
www.martin-wright.com
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