Certified NLP For Business Training Archives - Fire Dragon Lanka PVT Ltd

A Resilient Mind Is Trained

Sarah Merron — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 07:58:08 +0000

Resilience is a core skill, beneficial in business and life. Just like any skill, it’s something we can train our minds to learn. Being resilient is not shying away from challenges. It’s not an absence of fear or doubt. We are not invulnerable when we are expanding to achieve our dreams and desires. It’s the act of knowing yourself and learning the art of self-management. A resilient mind is trained to recognise its agenda, biases, and triggers and manage accordingly to maintain balance.

A Resilient Mind Is Trained: Where Do We Begin?

We begin by taking the time to get to know ourselves, building from the ground up. We can discover if we enjoy spending time with ourselves when free from ANY distraction. Where does your mind wander when you give yourself nothing to do? How do you feel? Do you feel calm, agitated, peaceful, relaxed, anxious, or something else?

If we begin here, we begin to understand what we direct our energy and attention to that does not exist in the present moment. Specifically, we begin to identify how much time we allow our mind to spend in the past and the future. We can start to notice whether that “out of now” time is helpful or unhelpful. If we are feeling anxious, as we direct our thoughts into the future or back out to the past, it can be interesting to notice what happens when we draw our focus back into the present moment.

You can choose to make time for this every day and you’ll quickly learn how to maintain a peaceful state by focusing all your thoughts and energy in the present.

A Building Sense of Inner Knowing

As you get to know who you are when you are alone and how your mind can travel, you get into the habit of learning to observe your thoughts in the now. Your ability to feel the connection between your emotions, your energy, and your thoughts increases dramatically. By taking a higher perspective, you can notice what situations, experiences, and conversations trigger an emotional or motivational shift.

This level of self-awareness directs you to make more helpful decisions about your environment, what conversations you choose to engage in, and when. When you observe your reaction in the present you can appreciate when to speak and when to be silent. You know when to breathe in and count to 10 and you can present our viewpoint with a quiet assertion. Connection to self builds and gives you even more insight.

The Trust & Acceptance Connection

Moreover, you will develop an inherent knowledge of your energy cycles; allowing you to know when to push forward and when to rest. Even more helpful, you will identify the best way to tune your mind for motivation every morning.

As we show our body and mind this level of respect and acknowledgement, we begin to trust what we can do and accept ourselves as we are. In turn, this leads to a less-judgemental perception. Instead of driving ourselves to be who we think we should be, we allow ourselves to be who we are; free to utilise our gifts and operate from a place of authenticity.

This freedom gives us the opportunity to acknowledge our own agenda, goals, desires and biases. Armed with this awareness, we can decipher information more objectively, opening us up to cleaner interpretation and more connected communication.

The more compassion we can have for others, the more powerful our leadership skills are.

Developing Your Own Tools

There are may tools and techniques for developing a resilient mindset.

In reality, the only ones that are guaranteed to work for you are those you observe working in your daily experience. Testing and feedback, doubt, and uncertainty are part of the process. The looser we can hold our beliefs and the more we can release needing to know, the more self-certainty we open ourselves up to.

From there, we can acknowledge that the mind contains the medicine we need to direct our motivation, ‘feel-good’ factor, and physical well-being.

There is no one-size-fits-all. It’s about investing the time to personally empower ourselves.

Ensure you know what triggers you emotionally and, conversely, what gets you out of a slump and back into positive momentum. If you start from there, use that awareness with purpose, everything you build on that foundation from your inner wisdom can only serve you well.

Find Out More About Working With Fire Dragon Lanka

Find out more about the 21-Day Mind Reset in February 2022

Find out more about Executive Coaching here.

Discover how you can upskill quickly with our Core Skills Training Courses.

Learn more about our approach to Bespoke Training Design.

Click here to find out more about Certified NLP For Business Training.

The post A Resilient Mind Is Trained appeared first on Fire Dragon Lanka PVT Ltd.

NLP Concepts: Managing Confirmation Bias

Sarah Merron — Sun, 06 Jun 2021 10:51:00 +0000

If you’re trying to effect change, whether for a client or within your team, business or company, understanding confirmation bias is an ability you want. This insight will support you in managing confirmation bias to create impactful change, however small or large.

Framing The Issue Of Confirmation Bias

First, we want to consider where our beliefs, attitudes, and opinions really come from. Most of us believe our convictions are logical, impartial, and objective. We like to imagine they’re the result of years of experience and a fair assessment of current circumstances and information available to us.

In reality, that’s rarely true. Every single one of us is a victim of our confirmation bias. Quite simply, this means we seek out and pay attention to information that supports our belief system. Simultaneously, we delete or ignore information that is contrary to what we believe.

Confirmation Bias In Business

Imagine you’re trying to install a new system at work that could potentially centralise interdepartmental communications and dramatically increase productivity if every team member engages with it fully.

You are tasked with sourcing the best supplier for the system and project managing the installation. You see a range of suppliers and in every meeting, you learn a little bit more about what these systems can do and you get more excited about the positive impact they can have on the business. With each learning comes a more vivid representation of what day-to-day work life will be like. You’re becoming a greater aficionado of the project with every passing day.

You select your supplier and you’re already 6 weeks into this project. Now, you embark on a 3-month implementation plan. In order to implement the system fully, you need to gain buy-in from key influencers and managers within the business. It’s going to take a group effort to get this system up and running. Then you hit a brick wall. You’re met with deathly silences to emails, lack of enthusiasm, and none of the information you need to progress your plan.

What Happened?

As you were forging ahead with your plans and getting excited about the future, you may have only communicated the potential for a powerful impact to your boss or the finance team signing off the payment.

Everyone else in the business may have a rough idea of what you’re working on, and yet they continue in the zone of ‘comfortable knowns’. If they’ve worked in the business for a long time, it’s likely they know how to use existing systems with ease and, since few people enjoy admin, and many see it as a time thief, it’s likely you’ll face resistance. The idea of a) having to prepare a high volume of reports, b) having to sit in meetings to discuss requirements and needs, and c) having to invest more time in learning a totally new system will feel prohibitive to their daily workload and less important than achieving existing targets.

Specifically, many people will have constructed an entire belief system around the idea ‘if it isn’t broken, why fix it?’

How Do You Fix It?

If you find yourself at this stage, you can influence a mindset shift in 3 simple steps. Firstly, you’ll want to interview some key influencers in the business, both those who are open to the new system and those who are highly resistant. You’ll want to understand what is causing the resistance, without any attempt to change their view at that point. Secondly, you’ll want to ask yourself what specific challenges is this system solving and what are the key benefits. Then you’ll want to find out what’s important for each of the key influencers (their values) around the main problem solved/solution delivered. Thirdly, you want to re-sell the idea of the project into each of the key influencers from their perspective. How specifically will it benefit each of them as individuals and how does it align with their values.

Helpful Questions

Remember the objective here is to gather information rather than to create a counterargument. Ask probing questions, get to the crux of the matter and consider the situation from the other person’s point of view. It’s really useful to ask questions that allow the other person to express their views clearly.

Resistance

1) I’ve noticed that some people feel resistant to this change and I wonder if you could help me appreciate their perspective?

2) What do you believe concerns people most about making this change?

3) What is your greatest concern?

4) What do you believe will be the impact if we implement this new system?

Values

Remember to clearly frame the core benefit in your own mind. Let’s say, it’s time-saving and a more accessible view of departmental activities. The questions you would ask are:

1) What’s important to you about saving time in your role?

2) What else, what else, what else?

3) What’s important to you about knowing precise project progress across all departments?

4) What else, what else, what else?

5) If the answer seems too specific, ask “what does that allow you to do” or “what do you get from that?”

Keep asking the questions until you have a list of concepts you can use to present a compelling argument.

Influencing Change

Lastly, you present your argument in a way that demonstrates respect for the other person’s point of view and shows them how the solution aligns with their values.

For example:

“I appreciate that it may take some extra work and planning to implement this system. You’re busy and you probably feel like I’m just adding to your workload. So, if I told you that in 3 months time I can probably shave 25% off the time you spend emailing and calling other departments to find out the status of projects, and you can create your monthly reports in 2 mins by just clicking a button, would that get you excited?”

A Time Investment

As you read this, you may be thinking this is a heavy time investment for you. So what is in it for you? The ability to drive your project forward, fully supported by the key influencers, who will then encourage others to get on board the train of change.

Ideally, we would gain this level of buy-in at the start of the project and use our knowledge and enthusiasm expansion to feedback exciting prospects to others at every step of the way. However, let’s face it, most of us learn this lesson with hindsight, and that’s okay too!

NLP Concepts: Managing Confirmation Bias To Impact Change

One of the important things to remember about Confirmation Bias is that people don’t want their minds changed by other people. Consequently, we want to ask enough questions to lead people in such a way that they can begin to appreciate the potential we can see. A strong convincer as a counter-argument can often cause a greater barrier to change. In the same way, feedback, when it is not wanted, can be incredibly destructive. It simply builds resistance.

So, listen and glean as much information about another person’s perspective as possible. Accept their point of view as completely valid. Then tailor your arguments to fit their model of the world so that they convince themselves to change their own minds.

To be an impactful influencer, it’s important to be able to appreciate other views and perceptions. Every time you engage in the type of process mentioned above, you’re learning to observe with more clarity, listen more carefully, improve your language skills, and expand your own model of the world.

Find Out More About Working With Fire Dragon Lanka

Find out more about the 21-Day Mind Reset in February 2022

Find out more about Executive Coaching here.

Discover how you can upskill quickly with our Core Skills Training Courses.

Learn more about our approach to Bespoke Training Design.

Click here to find out more about Certified NLP For Business Training.

The post NLP Concepts: Managing Confirmation Bias appeared first on Fire Dragon Lanka PVT Ltd.

Leaders Need to Understand Motivation Direction

Sarah Merron — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 13:40:00 +0000

How do we incite passion in our peers, clients and teams? What generates productivity levels that drive exponential growth? Quite simply, how do you get people to take action? If you can identify motivation direction within your people, and you know what to do with that information once you have it, you’ll be empowered to avoid and prevent problems and achieve goals more easily. That’s why leaders need to understand motivation direction.

What triggers you into action? Specifically, what triggers someone else into action? Most of us make the fundamental error of imaging that others are motivated in the same direction that we are. Even worse, we may assume that everyone is motivated in the same way. They’re not. In fact, nearly every member of your team will be motivated in a slightly different way. As a result, a one size fits all approach to motivation just doesn’t cut the mustard and can leave you with overdue deadlines, inaction and frustration.

What Is Motivation Direction?

Have you ever delivered a speech that you believed was truly motivational and yet it was met with blank faces and zero emotional response?

In simple terms, motivation direction refers to whether people move towards an objective or away from problems to be solved or prevented. At the basic level, if we can understand the primary motivation direction, we can tailor our language and concept framework to suit every person individually.

Better Or Worse Is Irrelevant - It's A Trigger

Towards and Away from mindset goes deeper than mere optimism or pessimism. Leaders need to understand motivation direction so they can push the trigger button for action. Frankly speaking, this isn’t about discovering the best way to communicate with people, it’s about using your words and communication frameworks to set the action in motion.

In the same vein, it’s common when we first become aware of motivation direction to judge it. Frequently, people assess the ‘towards pattern’ as positive and the ‘away from pattern’ as negative. Hence it’s important to remember that these patterns are simply triggers that will launch someone into action. Positive or negative is irrelevant to some degree.

Towards Motivation

People with a towards motivation pattern have a firm focus on their goal. They look forward, rather than backward, and they focus their mindset on goals and how to achieve them.

Towards motivated people are skilled in managing priorities and they get excited every time they move a step closer towards their objectives. Some people may consider them naive since they tend to be less skilled at taking potential barriers and challenges into account.

A towards mindset is very useful when leading a team, or when working as a salesperson. They tend to focus on the future, rather than getting bogged down in problems from the past. Even though this can result in the repetition of the same mistakes or problems, they work at a fast pace and will constantly be cultivating new opportunities.

Since we get what we focus on, towards-minded people often see or manifest more opportunities in their world and are frequently perceived to have the ‘Midas Touch’.

What do leaders need to understand about motivation direction in this instance? Leaders should know that a towards motivation mindset becomes demotivated if a leader constantly focuses on past problems and will leap into rapid action if ideas are framed towards what they want as individuals.

Away From Motivation

Is there anyone in your team with a firm focus on what could go wrong? Could it be you? Individuals with an away-from motivation pattern have a high awareness of what should be avoided or removed in a process, to minimise risk. Specifically, they get motivated when they move away from their focus. Effectively, they become highly active when there is a threat.

If you were the kid who left their homework to the last minute, you’ll be familiar with the away-from pattern. You may even have convinced yourself that you perform better under pressure! Enforced deadlines are often highly effective for motivating the away-from mindset.

In any given context, away-from people make excellent trouble-shooters and solve problems fast. They can also be skilled at identifying obstacles during planning since they’re naturally focused on what could go wrong.

Is Your Business In Crisis Mode?

Distraction is the major challenge to overcome when we operate this mindset. We may have difficulty maintaining focus, feeling compelled to respond to negative situations. We drop everything to fix a problem.

This thinking framework can have a negative impact when it operates either at the head of a department or the top of an organisation.

When leaders are fuelled by the away-from mindset the entire department or business may operate on crisis management. Not only is this extremely demotivating for towards-minded team members, but it can also minimise growth and movement forwards.

The away-from mindset may also have difficulty managing priorities since anything wrong will act as a beacon, stealing away their attention.

Moreover, since these people tend to feel hugely satisfied when they resolve a crisis, they often attract more to solve to prove their ability to themselves.

What do leaders need to understand about motivation direction with the away from pattern? Specifically, they must demonstrate that they are considering potential obstacles and problems when making decisions and discussing projects. Presenting thoughts in this way helps away from mindset trust that leaders have fully considered the business plan and vision. Away from mindset then knows it’s safe to follow the leader.

How To Recognise The Pattern

Firstly, it’s important to note that people operate a towards and away from mindset within a specific context. For example, a person may operate a towards mindset when it comes to work and an away-from mindset when it comes to their home life. Additionally, similar to brain function and dominance, most people tend to align with either towards or away from patterns in the same context. A few people operate both the toward and away from pattern equally.

We can ask simple questions regarding a specific context to elicit the pattern. For example, “what’s important to you about hitting your sales target this month?” The response, both verbal and non-verbal will give you an indication of the motivation framework within that context.

Indicators of Patterns

Towards Mindset

Away From Mindset

Digging Deeper With Questions

Now, we might imagine that we can identify motivation direction from one simple question. We can’t. In fact, motivation direction is nearly always hidden under learned responses, company culture or perceptions about being judged by others.

It’s useful to question someone between three and five times to discover the motivation direction. We ask upward direction questions such as those cited below.

What’s important about that for you?

OK, so what’s in it for you?
And what’s the point of that?
Why would you bother doing that?
I wonder, what is it you get from that?
Big picture, what’s that all about for you?
What’s the outcome of that?

Let's Consider Some Examples

Resist Making Assumptions Until You Dig Deeper

Building Rapport With Influencing Language

What leaders need to know about motivation direction is when they take the time to use language with purpose, the can get a person’s complete attention. This approach develops strong rapport because they feel safe. The other person unconsciously knows that you’re seeing things from their perspective, and thinking in alignment with them.

This level of rapport has many benefits. Firstly, you don’t have to continuously repeat yourself since people naturally want to focus on what you’re saying. Secondly, this approach tends to minimise misunderstanding and miscommunication.

Can We Change Our Motivation Pattern?

The simple answer is yes. A better question would be, “do we want to?”

In fact, through the coaching process and while engaged in the life long school of learning, our motivation direction can change. Let’s say a person has a towards motivation direction regarding their role as a salesperson. At some point, they may take a risk or perhaps make a mistake and it results in a job loss. A sudden awareness of the negative impact of taking risks or having a lack of attention to detail could shift their motivation direction. In the same way, someone who is 100% in health may imagine their body as invincible. When they have a heart attack, the emotion connected with this event shifts their direction away from death.

In coaching, we generally aim to move away from mindset towards the goal. This is especially true when we’re working to release the negative emotions triggered by life events, such as those mentioned above. We let go of limiting beliefs, negative emotions and unwarranted doubts. As we do this, we naturally become more ‘towards’ in our focus. The result tends to be a greater level of self-awareness, confidence and self-esteem. Therefore, addressing and expanding our own motivation direction can be extremely useful and positively impactful.

Finding The Balance

However, it’s useful to consider that we do benefit from a balance of both towards and away from mindset when we work on projects. That is to say, a team full of only towards mindset will forge ahead and yet waste time repeating problem patterns. Whereas a team comprised only of away from mindset may well work very slowly, miss opportunities, or operate in crisis mode.

Both perspectives and motivators are useful, and a balance brings a broader perspective and balanced action. Towards mindset benefits from being asked questions to assess risk and unforeseen challenges. Whereas Away From mindset benefits from questions to refocus towards the goal and establish whether actions are moving towards or away from the desired outcome.

Leaders Need To Understand Motivation Direction In Context

Recruitment

Clearly, it’s useful to identify motivation direction during the recruitment process. It’s useful to know whether a person is drive by attaining objectives or troubleshooting and problem solving. What’s more, someone operating an away from mindset will work at high speed and intensity until they are close to their goal. When close enough to mitigate risk, performance slows. Conversely, towards mindset has the ability to self-motivate repeatedly, and yet we will see diminished performance if they’re surrounded by away from mindset all day long.

Trends In Professions

Specific professions have towards or away from cultures. For example, an Investment Banker is more likely to have a towards making money pattern than their accountant, who’ll be away from problems, losses or operating outside the law. Both work in finance. In the same way, most medical doctors and researchers will operate an away from death pattern. What’s interesting is that a complementary health practitioner is much more likely to operate a towards health pattern. It’s easy to see how the clashes happen!

Pace

What is interesting is that slow-moving professions tend to operate from an away from perspective, prioritising focus on everything that can go wrong and mitigating risk before moving forward. Conversely, rapid growth industries tend to be led by a towards mindset.

Management Vs Employee

Different levels also have cultures. Think about the activities most people in leadership are involved in. Goal setting, objectives, and business planning are all towards activities. Let’s face it, what we do every day we become. What’s more, acknowledging that people facing the daily challenges may find it hard to feel motivated as we turn the ship about-face to take advantage of an opportunity. Therefore, we want to learn how to present our thoughts in a way that triggers others to become motivated and act.

Want To Understand Motivation In Detail?

If you really want to understand how different people are motivated and how to push the trigger button, you can.

Our Certified NLP For Business Training at Mastery level investigates Meta Programmes, Motivation and Demotivation triggers in-depth. Get in touch to find out how you can light the bonfire of motivation in your team.

Find Out More About Working With Fire Dragon

Interested in identifying or changing your own motivation direction? This can be achieved through Executive Coaching. Get in touch to find out more.

Find out more about Executive Coaching here.

Discover how you can upskill quickly with our Core Skills Training Courses.

Learn more about our approach to Bespoke Training Design.

Click here to find out more about Certified NLP For Business Training. You can also access our videos on our You Tube channel.

Specialising in Solopreneurs, Entrepreneurs and Growth Businesses, we know how to support you in mastering your mind and behaviour for exponential development and success.

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