Archive for the ‘Performance’ Category

Set the tone for a new year—actively engaged in an exceptional training opportunity designed to help you accomplish your goals!

Spend January 16th through January 22nd, 2012 with NLP Trainer John Overdurf in Oregon for an intensely meaningful week-long training with outcomes you’ll incorporate into your life!

John Overdurf is internationally known as the finest Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Trainer in the U.S. and Europe. NLP is the art and science of communication, and assists us to deeply understand each individual’s unique non-verbal and verbal experience of life. Why does this matter? Doing so helps us to develop a deeper rapport with others, and experience connectedness on levels that amplify our most important personal and professional relationships.

* Uncover your own personal genius
* Study how your mind shapes reality through language and behavior
* Learn how to create the results you truly want in your life, while creating value for others in the process

The seven-day Master NLP Training workshop will be highly experiential with group interactions, demonstrations, exercises, and discussions in a fun, easy-going, and stimulating environment. Upon successful completion of this training, participants are eligible for NLP Practitioner Certification, HNLP Practitioner Certification, and HNLP Coaching Certification.

Location: Fairfield Marriott Inn 6100 South West Meadows Road · Lake Oswego, Oregon 97035
Day 1 through 6: 1pm- 7pm* Day 7: 1pm- 6pm*
*Ending times of each session may vary slightly due to course content + discussions

$2995.00 includes seven-day training + practitioner training downloads
$500.00 deposit to enroll + receive practitioner MP3s
Balance of $2495.00 due two weeks prior to beginning the training

To register for this training event, see John Overdurf’s website or call Diane Ulicsni at 503.740.6614

January 16^th through January 22^nd, 2012

What a fantastic way to start the new year – engaged in the perfect training that will finally help you to accomplish your goals and change your life!

To register now:  go to johnoverdurf.com, or call Diane Ulicsni at 503.740-6614

John Overdurf is internationally known as the finest Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Trainer in the U.S. and Europe.

This is an once-in-a-lifetime training in human excellence that you will certainly want to attend. Why? NLP is truly the Art and Science of Communication. Do you think your profession or relationship would benefit from excellent communication?

NLP is about you learning the methods and techniques for helping yourself and others to achieve outstanding and amazing results in any field. NLP helps you to understand, deeply, each individual’s unique non-verbal and verbal experience of life, which helps you to develop a deeper rapport and connectedness.

It offers ways and means for uncovering your own personal genius. NLP is a practical skill that I think should be taught very early on in school. Kids would have a much easier time learning and being in charge of their emotional states.

93% of communication is known to be unconscious or non-verbal. Do you think it would be useful if you knew if someone was in agreement or disagreement from non-verbal cues? (You bet!)

HNLP is the study of how mind creates reality through language and behavior. The NLP training helps us create the results we truly want in life, while creating value for others in the process.

About HNLP, John Overdurf, and John’s Master NLP Training

The NLP training is for the busy professional who wants the newest streamlined coaching practitioner training developed and taught by a recognized leader in the NLP and coaching fields. If you are new to NLP or you are already an NLP Practitioner or Master Practitioner you’ll benefit from the strong emphasis on how to conversationally coach the unconscious mind.

Neuroscience has long known that our unconscious functioning precedes conscious awareness by a 1/2 second. This means that most if not all coaching issues like motivation and procrastination, indecision, conflicting priorities, burnout and overwhelm, and performance anxiety are a result of automatic (unconscious) reactions and patterns which occur before conscious awareness. Amazingly, though, most coaching programs available today rely heavily on conscious processing through questioning, analysis, and tasking. It’s like trying to steer a train by asking someone in the last car to change the direction of the entire train. It simply won’t work.

The January 2012 training will teach you how to work with unconscious processes that are at the root of most coaching issues, yet do it in a natural, conversational way that makes this approach adaptable to any context.

Through his 30 years of experience in the fields of therapy, training, and coaching John is able to simplify complex concepts into practical step-by-step processes with tremendous scope in the “real world.” The result is a training where you’ll acquire cutting edge conversational skills effective for business, coaching, and therapy while shifting your paradigm of change and what is possible in your life. John’s teaching emphasizes the balance of skill development while also transforming from the inside out to create congruent competence. Skills alone make a technician with no humanity or heart. Transformation alone is inspirational, but sometimes lacks the “how to” details. Because John teaches to both the conscious and unconscious mind you’ll have a direct experience of skill development and personal transformation – and to the extent you are open and ready for it, increase your congruence and belief in yourself to be a positive presence in life.

More NLP Training Session Details

After you register for this training you will be able to download the Advanced Coaching Practitioner Experience which is an entire Practitioner Training program. Listening to the material in advance will assist you in developing a familiarity with the information and the skills to maximize your learning during the training. By the time you take the class, this familiarity will enable to have more “hands on” and question and answer time during class. Following the training you’ll have this material as your own follow-up program to further integrate your learnings.

Training session topics include:

• Coaching and how it differs from therapy and consulting
• NLP/HNLP and the coaching field
• Optimal coaching states
• HNLP coaching overview
• HNLP conversational change model
• Conversational elicitation of strategies and outcomes
• Determining unconscious congruence and motivation
• Utilization of naturally occurring states to create powerful change
• Integrating transformative, non-linear, hypnotic language patterns into your coaching work
• Conversational approaches to installing and testing remedial and generative strategies
• Beyond goals – why goals don’t work and what does
• Common coaching issues and how to deal with them
• Turn-key office protocols and client forms
• Sensory acuity—how do develop extraordinary skill in reading other’s unconscious processing through eye-accessing, voice qualities, and physiology
• New advanced HNLP processes to develop rapid natural states of rapport
• Linguistic skills applied specifically to coaching
• How to ask the right questions at the right time to create a change in the listener’s perception as well as language patterns to create facilitate unconscious receptivity in the listener
• Anchoring – processes to create significant and instantaneous shifts in emotional states in ourselves and others
• Sub-modalities – techniques for changing and revising the coding system the brain uses to create meaning
• Alignment and parts integration – techniques to create core change

The training will be highly experiential with plenty of group inductions, demonstrations, exercises, and discussions in a fun, easy-going, and stimulating environment.

Upon successful completion of the seven day training, participants are eligible for NLP Practitioner Certification, HNLP Practitioner Certification, and HNLP Coaching Certification.

Location

Fairfield Marriott Inn

6100 South West Meadows Road · Lake Oswego, Oregon 97035 USA

Hours

Day 1 through 6: 1pm- 7:00pm*

Day 7: 1pm- 6:00pm*

*Ending time may vary slightly due to course content

Training Course Tuition

$2995.00 – includes seven Day Training and Practitioner Training Downloads

$500.00 deposit to enroll and receive Practitioner MP3s

Balance of $2495.00 due two weeks prior to the beginning of the training

Cancellation Policy: Non- Refundable deposit can be applied to any other johnoverdurf.com training. You keep the MP3s. The remaining balance is fully refundable with written notification received seven business days prior to the first day of the training.

Certifications

Optional NLP/HNLP Certification

This is a streamlined training. Only the NLP information directly relevant to coaching will be presented. If you are not already an NLP practitioner, you must have listened to all the information on the Practitioner MP3 at least once prior to the training or before receiving certification.

Successful completion of training and completion of written review:

$100.00 Certification fee.

Optional HNLP Coaching Certification:

Successful completion of training and successful completion of HNLP Coaching Practicum/Evaluation:

$100.00 Certification fee.

NEWSFLASH: NLP has now been fully approved as educational credit toward a Master’s Degree in Applied Coaching with Derby University in the UK!

Ready to speak with confidence, professionalism, and panache? Join the Speakers Excellence Training workshop with expert trainer John Overdurf in Portland this July.

Presenting your true self effectively and confidently will positively add to your professional persona, your practice, your approach to all that you do. To dive into such professional development work this summer in a fun environment, Presenting Yourself: Speakers Excellence Training will be offered July 23rd through 27th in the afternoons/evenings. Additional (morning) sessions are also offered to supplement the intensive training program geared to enhance your overall presentation and public speaking skills.

Dates: July 23rd through 27th
Time: 1:00pm to 7:00pm
Location: Fairfield Marriott Inn, 6100 SW Meadows Road, Lake Oswego, Oregon 97035
Phone: 503.670.7557

Registration and course info: Click on training page found on calendar at johnoverdurf.com.

Boost your professionalism, your presentation skills, and your self esteem this summer. The work you engage in through this workshop will carry over into all elements of your personal and professional development and last a lifetime!

Those who want to secure pearls from the sea have to dive deep to fetch them. It does not help them to dabble among the shallow waves near the shore and say that the sea has no pearls and all stories about them are false. –Sai Baba

A curious concept, perhaps, for those of us who want a different life but don’t know how to go about making change in order to self actualize or to realize our dreams.

Maybe there will always be those people who believe in the struggle of life and little of anything else. When discussing dreams or plans or even struggles to move through, these people are usually the first to say “That’s impossible!” or “You can’t do that!”, or “Accept it, that’s just the way life is. You can’t change it.”

And, these are probably the very same people who are not willing to dive deep to fetch their pearls.

In years of coaching experience, I can confidently tell you that the most beautiful pearls are those you find at the depths of your soul. These gems are truly there waiting for you to find them.

Many of my clients read the book The Secret, and took its many lessons and advice. One such exercise noted in this material is to create a vision board, which many other practitioners use, too. It’s a simple exercise that asks you to list or create all your life goals in visual form on board, sometimes taking the form of a collage, sometimes taking the form of other creative visual lists, so you can look at it daily to allow time for serious reflection, enabling the images to lodge into your conscious (and subconscious) mind.

This book and its premise was amazing on many levels for millions of people, helping to change consciousness and raise awareness of areas often overlooked along the path of self development. But in my opinion, the creators forgot to provide folks with a few additional, critical steps to take in order for goals to actualize. Many of my clients were upset because they had been visualizing their goals for months to no avail. Nothing happened, and they became frustrated or deflated in thinking their goals could indeed be realized.

If you have had a lifetime of trauma and negative experiences, we now know that your brain has made pathways–a super-highway of pathways–for those negative experiences to remain active in the mind and in your pattern of thinking. (You’ve all heard me talk about this facet of neuroscience before.) In my experience, resolving these negative experiences with a coach or therapist is the first thing that has to happen in order to start moving your energy forward.

It was either Einstein (or Frank Zappa) who said that the mind is like a parachute, working best when it is open. Einstein also told us the imagination is more important than knowledge. Both ideas are important concepts, indeed.

Learning how to tap into your inner self or to dive deep into and beyond your (sub)conscious is quite a task, one that offers great rewards. Consistent, repeated focus on what you want will lead to spontaneous intuitive breakthroughs.

Remember, no matter who you think you are, you are always much more than that. When you learn to dive deep, you’ll find tremendous gifts.

I wanted to share some more ideas to help inspire you to create excellence in your life – your personal and/or professional life.

The following steps to creating excellence are taught by John Overdurf in his basic NLP trainings. His work is so magical, you can’t help but be motivated!

Ready to take care of business to get where you want to be professionally?

1. Know your outcome
People respond best when they know what they want as opposed to what they don’t want. It’s great to know what you don’t want, too. Make lists. Start to envision what your preferred professional life looks like – which conditions make work desirable? which conditions are not negotiable? intolerable? Once you can envision what your best professional scenario looks like, you’ll be able to make good decisions that lead you down the path to that preferred outcome.

2. Be flexible
The person with the most flexibility will be the controlling element in the system. Being flexible and adaptable is truly an asset. It doesn’t mean you’re going to compromise every time there’s conflict, or give up on your dreams – it simply means you’re willing and able to go with the curves life’s road takes sometimes. When you have a focused outcome, you’re also able to see different routes to get where you ultimately want to go. (There’s more than one way, you know!) When you haven’t got the outcome set in your mind, a bumpy ride might throw you off. Remember, you can always change your behavior and your route without altering your preferred outcome.

3. Use your senses with precision
To reach your outcome, you’ve got to know whether you’re getting closer to it or further away. Learn to read feedback. Learn to reassess along the way. Learn to take risks and challenge yourself. And, most importantly, remember that “failure is only feedback.”

4. Take action – now!
This is personal power. Make a decision. Take an action. Do something. You can always change your path if one decision doesn’t get you to where you want to go. Again, when your ultimate goal is solid, you can use your decision-making and coping skills to guide you. Sitting around stewing about decisions may only frustrate you in the long run. Do something! Do it now! It’s all temporary anyway, and you can always change course.

5. Ask HOW, not WHY
When your professional goal is solid and vivid, and you’ve clearly and carefully assessed why you want to get to a certain level of performance that’s rooted in your core values, all you need to ask yourself next is how can you best reach your professional goals with the tools and skills you have within you. Make a plan. Strategize your best routes. And, GO!

Many of us have been challenged professionally, especially in these stressful, harsh economic times. Some of us are forced to shift what we do for a living, while others have been able to take some time to consider what it is they really want to do professionally. No matter your situation, it might be a good time to align with the BIG WHY – why are you in your career in the first place?

Many automatically say it’s for the money or the benefits. And, while that certainly may be a part of the big career picture, there truly are other forces at work in our choices for our own lines of work. You can discover your career values (or any of your life’s values like health, personal development, fitness, home life, for that matter) by asking yourself what is truly important to you about your career. It’s a powerful question, and one that needs revisiting from time to time.

Try this: take a minute to sit down and write out at least 10 values that are important to you about your career. Once you’ve made that list, place them in the order of importance to you.

For example:
1. Helping people
2. Educating people
3. Beautiful surroundings
4. Freedom
5. Giving back

and so on…

Once you rank your values in the order of importance to you, start at the top of your list, and ask yourself what is important to you about that particular value. What are the activities or duties you have in your current work that are connected to that value?

For example, let’s work with helping people. What’s important to you about achieving this value in life? What do you get out of helping others? Do you currently help others in your job? In other areas of your life? How? When? Why is this rewarding to you? How does this feed who you really are?

Think about these answers carefully, but, remember, this is just a snapshot in time. It’s how you’re feeling about your life and activities like work and values today – it may shift some on another day, and that’s why it’s neat to create these lists multiple times. But, the answers are indeed revealing. Your core values should be consistent. And, if they aren’t present in your current work, maybe there’s some room for you to explore other options, other work or activities that align with what you say is most important to you in life.

Keep thinking and making lists of values. Review them to see where the patterns lie. Also, check for negative statements – while it’s important to know what you don’t want to do, what you don’t value, this type of list is helpful for moving forward. When you really see what you love to do, acknowledge what you most value, then you can make some steps to get more of such activities in your work (and personal!) life. Why compromise when you know what makes you happy? You’ll be able to chart out a path that is rich and meaningful to you that is rooted in your core values.

Many of my clients come to me to deal with their anxiety and fear and transform it into positive energy that feeds them rather than takes energy away from their lives. The causes for such heavy emotions are varied, of course, and I hear throughout my daily/weekly sessions that people are afraid of these emotions – and are doing everything in their power to avoid feeling fearful.

In my experience, avoidance is probably not the best strategy as typically the emotion you are trying to avoid comes back with a vengeance. Negative emotions can fester, too, which then can transform into fatigue or other severe health problems. Not the kind of transformation most of us seek.

There are many steps I teach my clients to take to resolve negative emotions in order to help them regulate their energy and give them their power back.

If you avoid your feelings, or are plagued by fear and anxiety, you can do something for yourself immediately. This isn’t a quick fix but a first step at help until you can get the appropriate assistance to guide you in resolving the root of your true problem.

Take Time Out
Sit comfortably. Begin breathing in through your nose, and out through the mouth with your exhale lasting approximately twice as long as your inhale. Count to yourself to guide this practice. Raise your head every so slightly. Look up and find a spot on the wall or some area or object you can focus on. Soften your breathing as you focus on this spot. Keep your eyes fixed on the spot or object and start spreading your awareness to the periphery. Notice while keeping your eyes fixed that you can also see to the sides of yourself. Now, consider the space above your head, then the space below your body. Keep expanding your awareness all the way out, reaching, stretching this awareness to encompass the room, your space, your world, the universe.

Keeping your breathing soft, notice how you feel. Now soften your thoughts. You can even imagine space….in….between….each….of….your….thoughts. You can also imagine breathing through your heart. Notice how good this feels. (It sounds weird, perhaps, but give it a go!)

Spending just a few moments practicing this technique can really diffuse a stressful situation. If you are having a hectic day, use this visualization to help you to regain control while you’re still in the situation, right when it makes a difference.

And, practice, practice, practice. Your mind and body love repetition! When you make this exercise part of your regular practice it will work better, and become an automatic response geared to help you through stressful, fearful situations.

When we talk about states of being, we mean an emotion or feeling (happiness, sadness) that is held within us biochemically, via our individual internal electrical neural networks. When we experience emotions, the longest a strong urge can coast (biochemically) within our systems is a mere 90 seconds. In order for that feeling to last longer, someone is throwing logs on the fire! (hint: YOU).

In other words, according to the quantum zeno effect, paying attention to any specific neural connection keeps the associated circuitry open, dynamic, and alive. If you’re feeling severe anger for more than 90 seconds, then it is your own mind that is causing that emotion to last longer – not the emotion itself. In order for a state to persist, it has to be re-engaged or the nervous system has to be reminded to keep firing the same circuitry over and over again. This is done through making pictures or providing self talk or external stimulations from our environment. The stronger the feeling, the greater the number of circuits simultaneously fired.

I’ve blogged about the quantum zeno effect earlier this spring (and will keep doing so as this interesting and important topic is worth repeating). Remember that rapid, frequently repeated observations stabilize a system and slow the rate of change or decay. Fewer, less frequent observations destabilize a system and increase the rate of change or decay (anti zeno effect). The more you think about something, the longer you choose to not let go of a negative emotion or thought, the more hard-wired it will be in your system. Who wants that to happen?

How does this relate to being in the zone? Well, to get to that higher state (or relaxation, primarily) you need to be aware of what your mind is really focused on. Different information hangs out at different brain wave frequencies.

Gamma (my personal favorite!) 25-70 Hz:
Gamma waves are correlated with synchrony of far-reaching neural networks which creates integrative and more highly ordered cognitive and affective functions. They are instrumental in neural synchrony of processes like attention, working, memory, learning, and conscious perception. Gamma brain waves are evident during AHA! moments which are truly therapeutic moments lasting 200-300 milliseconds but that offer enlightenment for longer periods of time.

Beta 13-24 Hz:
Beta waves are correlated with a focusing of attention and perception coupled with active expression. These waves are evident during simple problem solving, arithmetic activities, and reality testing which each require making finer distinctions and communication through language. Because attention is focused, beta waves can also be correlated with many unwanted states that can hinder performance.

Alpha 8-12 Hz:
Alpha waves are correlated with states of relaxed alertness or more common flow states.They are evident during creative activities which can involve expression or reflection. In alpha, there is a widening of perception and relaxing of boundaries which allows for greater recognition of patterns, themes, and large frames of organization which can extend beyond language.

Theta 4-z Hz:
Theta waves are correlated with deeper states of reflection, contemplation, and sleep. They are evident during mystical experiences like out of body experiences, lucid dreaming, and deeper states of mediation. There is a further increase in the widening of perception and relaxing of boundaries which allows recognition of much longer cycles and larger patterns which are usually beyond language.

Delta 1-3 Hz:
Delta waves are correlated with only sleep for most people. They are evident during stages two and four sleep (physical restoration) where there is usually no conscious activity. In cases where consciousness is active, there is a further increase of experience of wholeness and boundlessness.

Have you guessed where the brain wave activity is when you’re in the zone? Can you guess where the brain wave activity is when change is most probable, possible?

The zone is a state of focused awareness or energized focus. A person is fully immersed in a feeling of focus or a single-minded immersion in performing or learning. It’s accessed through alpha or high alpha wave states. Athletes get into an expanded alpha or focused alpha state quickly. Monks get there during meditation.

But, how do you get there?

Try this basic practice. (I have my clients do this most every time they come in for a visit.)
* Take a nice deep breath in through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Make the exhale last twice as long as the inhale.
* Look straight up for a few seconds. Try to see the top of your own head.
* Return your eyes to normal (look straight ahead). Now, soften your gaze and try to access your peripheral vision.
* Soften your thoughts.
* Now, do what you have to do…You are in the zone.

You can practice this any time you can be still for a few moments – not, however, while driving, running, moving. Just sit still for a moment during your day and practice this. Then, get out there and perform optimally.

For many of us, basic needs were not met when we were children. For many, still, our basic needs are not being met as adults. In order to evolve and self actualize, to unlock our true potential, we’ve probably got to do some serious inner work.

Remember that Maslow believed that educators should respond to the potential an individual has for growing into a self actualized being. If we were all taught to recognize our potential from our earliest years, we could achieve just about anything. The following list provides some keys to unlocking potential in us all, and speaks to the educator in all of us.

1. Teach people to be authentic, to be aware of their inner selves, and to hear their inner feelings and internal voices.
2. Teach people to transcend their cultural conditioning and become world citizens.
3. Help people discover their vocation for life, their calling, fate, or destiny. (This is especially focused on finding the right career and right mate.)
4. Teach people that life is precious, that there is joy to be experienced in life. If people are open to seeing the good in all sorts of situations, life can certainly be viewed as worth living.
5. We must accept people as they are, and help them learn their inner nature.
6. Help assist others in securing their basic needs. This includes safety, belongingness, and esteem needs.
7. Refresh true consciousness by teaching people to appreciate beauty and other positive forces in nature and in life.
8. It takes control to improve quality of life in all areas. (Controls and boundaries are helpful to achieving goals, while complete abandon in this regard might not necessarily help evolution.)
9. Teach people to transcend trifling issues. Assist them in approaching serious problems in life including suffering, pain, death, injustice.
10. Become a good chooser. Practice making good choices.

Think what a fabulous planet (world, community, home) we could create if we were all focused on unleashing our true human potential!

We all have an inner guidance that is greater than our conscious mind. In watching the Olympics it is obvious that some of the athletes have been trained to tap into this power. Some have headphones on right up to their race – what do you think they are listening to?

I always teach the athletes I work with to access the part of their mind that is beyond the conscious mind. This means to tap into their subconscious or unconscious mind. To best illustrate this, you might think of a computer or ipod with all of the amazing capabilities they both have. The face of the computer is the conscious mind and all the programs and capabilities the computer has is the subconscious or unconscious mind. Wouldn’t it be valuable to learn how to operate your subconscious mind to peak performance levels? That subconscious mind is running your body, after all. We all have and are born with this ‘hardware’ but usually it is our parents, teachers, friends, who add to or build our software. These software programs may or may not be working for you; few of us know how to use them. I teach my clients how to switch to the program they want to use when they are competing (or in other areas in life that doesn’t have extreme competition).

State of mind control is the most important talent to develop. We each have an inner switch (like a light switch) that allows us to turn on the confidence or turn off the negative chatter. There are many modalities I teach to allow my clients to be able to consistently accomplish this power. Think of the implications here – how these skills could improve performance or how these skills might improve your life.

My CD called Power Circle presents a state of mind switch that is easy to listen to and easy to follow for learning to retrain your brain to be confident. This is one technique that everyone can easily accomplish with a little effort!