So we think we are pretty clever these days having so many ways to study and publish research about the brain. We have come a long way. We even have “Brain Awareness Week”

If you get the chance to see the Tutankhamun exhibition at the O2 you might be amazed by how advanced a civilisation could be 4000 years ago.

They also had an interesting take on the usefulness of the brain - given they didn’t have the technology to know what it’s role might be. Suffice to say they didn’t include it on the list of vital things to bury with the Pharoah for use in the afterlife.

Pretty stupid these Ancient Egyptians eh? Or were they? (more…)

One of the most common requests I recieve in coaching is, “I want to have more gravitas.” I’m sure we would all agree that it’s an empowering leadership behaviour, but what is it really?

If someone is sitting next to you right now with gravitas; how do you know? What are they doing? Can you describe that behaviour? (more…)

I wonder if you could imagine the benefits of increasing your reply rate on a marketing campaign by [say] 10%? Or, how much more impressed your Sales Director would be if you could generate ‘X’ extra leads from your website?

Milton Model linguistics are employed extensively in marketing and advertising; to disarm the rational mind and allow customers to begin to imagine why they ‘need’ a product. (more…)

I recently delivered a one our experience of NLP to students studying for Masters Degrees in PR and Marketing. It was delivered as an open frame - responding to and utilising students’ questions. Most questions seemed to relate to where NLP came from and how it can be used to influence your reader/listener/viewer/audience. It was a pleasure to talk to them. Engagement was extremely high, they were facinated and wanted to know more. Paul Simpson, who runs the graduate PR course said, "You certainly got them thinking which is no mean feat!"

I was recently listening to a phone-in quiz on the radio that beautifully demonstrated the structure of overwhelm. It was a movie quiz - The caller was given 30 seconds to name 10 films within a particular genre - for example: 10 romantic comedies or 10 action films. Seems like an easy enough task wouldn’t you agree? But it was amazing - there was loads of ‘ummm’ing and ‘errr’ing and most callers were only able to name 3 or 4 films in the 30 seconds.

Then I noticed something else: (more…)

I would like to share my personal opinion with you about yesterday’s rerun of Derren Brown’s TV program ‘The Heist‘ . This program was aired originally about two years ago and yesterday was the first time I’d seen it.

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Yesterday (Sunday) I was enjoying wonderful afternoon with my family when the topic of conversation turned to what I will be doing during the next few weeks as work activity becomes a bit quieter.

I said, "I will be working on my modelling project." just as my mother had taken a mouthful of tea. (more…)

Yesterday left me with some questions yet again, to no surprise really!

Some of these questions popped up after I braved the weather to listen to an interesting lecture at the Royal Society of London, a Francis Crick Prize lecture by Geraint Rees called ‘Decoding Consciousness‘. Now, I’m certainly no expert in the study of the workings of the human brain as you can see here so you can imagine that some of the lecture left me a bit confused.

They managed to show in scans that there is a part of the brain that fires up in response to sensory stimuli even if we consciously are unaware of this. Either I missed the point completely (which is not unthinkable!) or it was a confirmation of something I already know.

Think about it for a moment……. As you sit here reading this how consciously aware are you of the temperature of the room, the brightness of the lights, etc? Not very much probably until I just pointed your attention to it. This to me shows that what we are consciously aware of is only a small part of what is really going on in reality (reality being another question, I’ll leave this one till later!).

So, is it just me or is this the question here; Is your consciousness something to rely on to paint you a picture of ‘reality’, to tell you what is really going on, to make you feel in touch with the world?

Well………

My name is Swen and this is my first blog. I’m having such a great time discovering all sorts of fantastic new things lately that I think it would be a crime to keep them all to myself. By blogging some of these stories and experiences I’m presuming that they might be of interest to you.

Like earlier when I was on my way home after a day in our office (I work for noggin, we provide you with options and possibilities). Walking through the crowds of people busy with their Christmas shopping on this slightly rainy Friday afternoon I suddenly had this sinking feeling I’d forgotten something, you ever have that feeling? (more…)

For anyone interested in NLP, I would like to share with you something that was brought to my attention by Dr. John Grinder in early 2007. A recent Neurological discovery may go a long way to explain the phenomenon of rapport and real NLP Modeling.

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