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Never the Less Popular

First of all, I want to acknowledge your article, Garry, and the questions you pose. I also acknowledge the frustration that you might be feeling. When we try to measure NLP with pie charts and graphs it is a bit like trying to use a drawing pin to nail jelly to the ceiling. NLP is an experiential process. It is a concept that draws on our unconscious minds and that relies on us learning with our muscles, our minds and our hearts. My husband whose training was as an engineer, says that NLP is less like a pie chart and more like the Mona Lisa. He searches for black and white answers only to find that the questions lead to yet more questions. And that is hard to explain—that the answer, if there is one with NLP, is not so much finding the answer but in uncovering more questions. However, it is the quality of the questions we ask that influence the way we live our lives. (reprinted from the Training Journal June 2001).
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Embracing the unexpected

I lay motionless, helpless, prostrate on the floor. There was a part of me that had somehow distanced itself and was busy making sense and lies of what had happened… ‘Our cycling holiday? Two weeks to go… it would be alright… time to recover by then… just bruising’ Yet there was another part of me that was being suppressed that knew this pain and this sickness. I had felt this before but … delete that!’ I sensed people crowd round me… could not see their faces just felt their surprise, concern. Through the corner of my eye saw the food shelves being wheeled to shield/protect/shelter/hide me? I was alone and anonymous in the midst of strangers. I could not move.
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Reflections on the Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal (Crown Palace) was built by a Muslim, Emperor Shah Jahan in the memory of his dear wife – Queen Mumtaz Mahal at Agra in India. It is an “elegy in marble” or some say an expression of a dream.
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Heston Blumenthal – a 3 star modelling experience

I suppose we could have seen some of the significant patterns that make Heston such an extraordinary man and such an exceptional chef the moment he walked through the door. Stocky and humble, with almost a ‘bruiser-like’ appearance and a captivating charm Heston does not fit the stereotypical image of a small village chef. But that is the point everything that he does, everything that he is comes from a metaphor of paradox.
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Turkish Delight – trainer training in Istanbul

Given that we had just spent nearly 9 days exploring the importance of feedback it is not too surprising that I am responding to feedback from one of the student trainers in my group. I read the first article that I wrote about my experience here in Turkey to the group on the course and one of the participants had noted my reference to the ‘noise, noise, noise’.
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Trainer Training

We landed in Istanbul to the news that bombs had gone off in London. Mobile phones message tones were going off all around us in the queue for the passport control. Such a paradox – here were we arriving in a Muslim country when the very thing had been feared was happening back at home – a terrorist attack in the heart of my home country.
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