Today I met my most experienced(!) client for the first time. At 79 years of age she takes the trophy by a good 5 years or so!
There were many amazing things about our meeting today (including her fantastically point blank refusal to accept that, at 79, she should just accept her recent anxiety and be happy with her lot).
But it was a little story she told me that made me think and I thought I'd share. We were talking about how she is also very computer literate and is a bit of a photo editing expert!
Anyway, in the 1950s she started work for the Royal Air something or other and was fortunate enough to be working on one of only 2 computers in the whole country. As she described it, this machine was the size of two decent living rooms (amazing to think I now carry something significantly more powerful in my pocket).
The computer used paper 'tape' full of holes to compute whatever it was computing using some very clever maths and some equally clever engineering. When the machine broke down, a door was opened and boffins walked inside to see what the issue was.
One day the machine broke down, wouldn't run the program it was meant to. No matter how many experts they brought in it still refused to work. Professor this and Doctor that were brought in to locate the problem. Nothing doing. The boss says to these guys 'give it to Alice, she'll sort it'.
Alice took the paper 'program' as her first port of call and ran it through her fingers. 5 minutes later she grabbed her pen and poked it through the paper 'program'. Next run through, worked perfectly. The 'program' was missing a hole. What the boffins didn't know was that Alice had learned to read the programs. Pretty god damn cool if you ask me.
When you keep on looking in the wrong place you'll never find a solution. Sometimes it pays to ask yourself what the simplest solution could be and do that first.
Hope you enjoyed Alice's story and my liberal use of the word 'boffins'. :)
Showing posts with label Metaphors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Metaphors. Show all posts
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
Sunday, 19 August 2012
Guest Blog; What gets you out of bed in the morning?
Guest Blog Tonight: my friend and colleague Steve Burns writes tonight about getting out of bed in the morning. Enjoy :)...
Following our recent NLP Master Practitioner Course in Glasgow my fascination into how we are motivated to do the things we do was rekindled. Just how do you motivate yourself to get out of bed in the morning?
I mean, if you also have a memory foam mattress like me, you'll know just how cosy, warm and beautiful your sleeping palace can be...:-)
So how do you do it? Are you inspired & excited for the days plans, fearful & stressed that if you don't move soon then you won't have time to do what you feel you need to do? or maybe you juts kind of roll out, stumble into the shower and let the cold water do the job for you.
Of course when we zoom the camera back a bit we find a more important question at play...
In general, why do we do anything? What are you primary motivation strategies for getting things done?
Do you use the the anticipation of how good you're going to feel when you're done? Or perhaps you choose the gut wrenching fear of how bad you'll feel if you don't...Or maybe you're somewhere in between...
It's an important question when you think about it...Most of your day is taken up by 'doing stuff' so you might as well do it in a way where you get the greatest pleasure you can and the smallest amount of frustration.
I was told a story once about a foolish man and a wise man. On deciding to clean his closet for the first time in a year the foolish man opens the door, takes a look at the mass of disorganised clothes and random objects, instantly feels a pang of anxiety in the pit of his stomach but decides it's something he really should do. He proceeds to re-arrange his closet and, as he progresses through all the junk, the feeling of anxiety gets smaller and smaller until (once he has finished) the feeling has gone...
The wise man, however, had a different strategy...On opening the closet and seeing a similar scene of chaos he quickly projects himself into the future...and imagines what it's going to be like when he's finished...The time and place when the closet looks clean, organised and just the way he wants it...On feeling the good feeling this brings he starts the tidy...The closer he gets to this image the better he feels until he experiences the sense of satisfaction on completion...
Because when you get down to it there's always a way to do things that involves maximizing the pleasure and minimizing the stress...
So ask yourself the question, Why do I do what I do? Is it to mostly to avoid pain? or is it all about the pleasure? If it's the former then shifting this more towards noticing the pleasure could be one of the best things you've ever done...
Check out www.scottishcentreofnlp.com for details of where you can see Steve and I train together very soon indeed
Following our recent NLP Master Practitioner Course in Glasgow my fascination into how we are motivated to do the things we do was rekindled. Just how do you motivate yourself to get out of bed in the morning?
I mean, if you also have a memory foam mattress like me, you'll know just how cosy, warm and beautiful your sleeping palace can be...:-)
So how do you do it? Are you inspired & excited for the days plans, fearful & stressed that if you don't move soon then you won't have time to do what you feel you need to do? or maybe you juts kind of roll out, stumble into the shower and let the cold water do the job for you.
Of course when we zoom the camera back a bit we find a more important question at play...
In general, why do we do anything? What are you primary motivation strategies for getting things done?
Do you use the the anticipation of how good you're going to feel when you're done? Or perhaps you choose the gut wrenching fear of how bad you'll feel if you don't...Or maybe you're somewhere in between...
It's an important question when you think about it...Most of your day is taken up by 'doing stuff' so you might as well do it in a way where you get the greatest pleasure you can and the smallest amount of frustration.
I was told a story once about a foolish man and a wise man. On deciding to clean his closet for the first time in a year the foolish man opens the door, takes a look at the mass of disorganised clothes and random objects, instantly feels a pang of anxiety in the pit of his stomach but decides it's something he really should do. He proceeds to re-arrange his closet and, as he progresses through all the junk, the feeling of anxiety gets smaller and smaller until (once he has finished) the feeling has gone...
The wise man, however, had a different strategy...On opening the closet and seeing a similar scene of chaos he quickly projects himself into the future...and imagines what it's going to be like when he's finished...The time and place when the closet looks clean, organised and just the way he wants it...On feeling the good feeling this brings he starts the tidy...The closer he gets to this image the better he feels until he experiences the sense of satisfaction on completion...
Because when you get down to it there's always a way to do things that involves maximizing the pleasure and minimizing the stress...
So ask yourself the question, Why do I do what I do? Is it to mostly to avoid pain? or is it all about the pleasure? If it's the former then shifting this more towards noticing the pleasure could be one of the best things you've ever done...
Check out www.scottishcentreofnlp.com for details of where you can see Steve and I train together very soon indeed
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