I’ve been doing monthly NLP 101 meetups, and over time I’m starting to get a more regular attendance. NLP 101 is intended to be a “quickie” exposure to one aspect of NLP, and never has a prerequisite. This makes it difficult to build upon previous lessons and to teach some of the more advanced NLP techniques. I’ve had requests from several participants to do some more in-depth training.

I am planning a year long, 1 night a month (3rd Tuesday each month, 7-9:30pm) training which focuses on personal self-development, and will teach you the basics of NLP to boot.

“Boot” yourself with NLP.

Like a bootcamp, this class may not always be comfortable, true change will require the participant to open up to the possibility of change, and to fully participate in the class, completing your homework, and dedicating time to work on yourself.

Although this class is not a substitute for a formal NLP training, NLP Bootcamp will be a transformational experience for all participants. This class is about
rebooting you, and focusing on your issues.

Subjects covered will include:

• Presuppositions, Creating powerful questions.
• Anchoring,
• State Management
• Using timelines
• Creating Resources from your history
• Modeling others.
• How to change behaviors and habits.
• How to change beliefs.
• How to change states.
• Gaining the assistance of your Unconscious mind.
• Using self hypnosis to assist in “programming yourself”.
• Working with health issues.
• Neurological levels.

Additional Benefits:

1. 1 x personal, private NLP session, is included to help you work on your specific issues.
2. Free attendance at NLP 101 Sessions.
3. Free recordings of all NLP Bootcamp sessions
4. Free attendance at any Saturday “NLP Day” sessions I host during the next year. (I plan to have one on self-hypnosis soon)

When and where?

We will start on Tuesday the 23rd of April. and continue for the 3rd Tuesday each month, 7-9:30pm. The class is 12 sessions long.

Cost

$500 for all 12 sessions and the additional benefits listed above. Payment plans can be
arranged, sorry no credit cards accepted.
There is a 25% discount for people who have attended NLP 101 sessions before. Special rates are also available for people with financial limitations. please inquire with Norman for more details.

Reserve your place – Now!

Contact Norman at 510-409-3660 or email him at daoistdragon@gmail.com

A couple of months ago I took the helm of the East Bay NLP Meetup group.

I’ve always been interested in teaching NLP so I’ve started a series of NLP 101 sessions, each of which covers the principles of a basic element of NLP, and then give the participants a chance to experience it by working with others. These sessions are free, although a donation is requested to assist with our host’s expenses.

Basically it is the same process which was used when I went to NLP trainings, but simplified to the point where there are no prerequisites, and compressed to fit within 2 hours.

So far the attendance has been good, and the feedback has been great!

Each time I do one of these I am assembling a mini lesson plan and notes which I’ll use eventually to put together larger, paid trainings.

I’ve created a meetup group where I will be exploring the combination of Medical Qi Gong and Hypnosis.

This group is for anyone who seeks to improve their Wholeness, Healing, Wisdom and Personal Growth.

I will be leading Group Meditations mixed with breathing and movement exercises derived from Medical Qi Gong. I will further enhance the experience using Ericksonian Hypnosis and NLP. (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)

Following the meditation, I will give a brief talk on a topic of interest, demonstrate a related technique or pattern, and then give the class some time to practice.

We will be exploring practices from Medical Qi Gong, Chinese Energy arts, Hypnosis and NLP.
These practices will help you to:

• Increase your personal presence.
• Become aware of your unconscious programming.
• Improve your ability to communicate with your symptoms, your body, your unconscious, and others. Clear emotional blockages
• Produce balance in your body, mind and spirit.
• Transform old dysfunctional patterns into new resourceful ones.

I am a Certified Health Practitioner and Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). I have studied Chinese Martial Arts for 20 years and actively train in Wu Style Tai Chi, Sword, Sabre and Staff.

I learned the basics of Medical QiGong with a friend when she used it to help resolve her breast cancer 6 years ago. She has recovered completely, without chemotherapy and is still fine, with no symptoms, and attributes her healing to her Qi Gong practice. She continues to practice her Qi Gong daily.

While training in NLP I became aware of how similar the Hypnosis and NLP visualization techniques are to the Medical QiGong I was familiar with, so I have been exploring the blend of the two ever since.
I have also discovered that I have a talent doing group hypnosis, and firmly believe that it is time to share it with others who may need it.

Please feel free to RSVP for a class, the first session is always free!

It’s been a long and fascinating road on the way to becoming a “Certified Health Practitioner of NLP”. In addition to immersing myself in NLP audio and video trainings for several years, I’ve attended personally 9 NLP related trainings in the last 2 years….

It’s all now at a delicious turning point… I’ve pretty much studied all I need to study, I’ve got the highest certification now, so I’m at the point where I need to get off of my butt and start using what I’ve learned!

Am I any smarter? I hope so….. I can sense a shift in my awareness. I am more sensitive to the patterns of human growth, illnesses and relationships. I’ve got several huge tool boxes full of patterns and techniques which I can use to improve myself, the lives of others, or even community endeavors like businesses or churches. I didn’t know it before, but I now realize that my NLP fascination has set me solidly on the path to becoming a taoist wizard, healer and trainer.

I want to express my gratitude for the NLP Institute of California (NLPCA), and Tim and Kris Hallbom in particular. They are good people who have worked hard to spread knowledge of NLP, all while keeping open inquisitive minds. With their skills and magnetism, they could have chosen to be cult leaders, but instead they practice the balance and self awareness that they teach, and are fascinating role models and exemplars for all of us.

I want to thank all the guest trainers who have broadened my experience and provided me with new perspectives. Robert Dilts, Suzy Smith, Dee Kinder and Nick Leforce,

I am so grateful for the NLPCA community. There is a thriving community of students and volunteers which have collected around the NLPCA trainings. By training and practicing with other students I have become intimately familiar with many of their desires and obstructions. I have gained many deep friendships which have helped to feel valued, helped to ground me, and to propel me towards my dreams.

I also owe a debit to many people who have written books or recorded trainings about NLP. Some of them are not as saintly as the Hallboms, but they provided me much needed knowledge and motivation when I needed it. John Grinder, Richard Bandler, Adam Eason, Chris Howard, Stephen Brooks, Tony Robbins, Steve Andreas, Michael Hall, Michael Grinder, Tad James and many others…

I recommend NLP training for anyone. No matter what you do, or who you think you are, everything you do will benefit from the new perspectives provided in NLP training. Beware of “Quickie” trainings, you need to practice to get good. My recommendation? You’ll do well if you train at one of these three schools: NLP University, NLPCA, NLPCO

Do you need a little personal transformation first? I am available for Coaching, Hypnotherapy and NLP sessions, in person, or by phone.
If you are curious, call me at 510-409-3660 and we’ll schedule one.

I am also available for corporate coaching, I will provide another view of what’s going on in your company. I have 20 years of experience in leading cross-functional teams in the game industry, so I understand how to keep companies lean, agile and focused.

Stay tuned, I’ve got a Taoist Trance-Formations group program starting soon! You won’t want to miss it.

I spent the last 4 months, part time, working with a bunch of friends at Level13 Studio on an iphone game using the Unity Game Engine. It’s been a blast, and I really like Unity.

Anyway, If you own an iphone or an ipod touch, check it out, it is a fun romp for only $1. Here’s the Itunes link.

I’ve been exploring the methodology of GTD (Getting Things Done), GTD was developed by David Allen. I am starting to adopt some GTD principles myself in order to handle the multiple projects I’m working on simultaneously.

While exploring the web and GTD I ran across Merlin Mann and his website about GTD 43 Folders. Merlin is an amazing person with a lot of great experience and knowledge to share.

I found a real jewel of a presentation by Merlin about how to get started. It echoed some NLP presuppositions, especially “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first”, and threw a few jabs at the Seduction community at the same time.

So, instead of procrastinating, give your motivation a kick in the butt, and listen to this presentation already….

The Sound of Young America

In accordance with my synchronistic strategy for extending beliefs, I found someone I trusted and decided to explore her belief in Family Constellations.

For more about family Constellations check out the wikipedia entry and Burt Hellinger’s web site.

I was lucky: In the last few days I got to participate in family constellations with two separate groups. I was very impressed:

1. The results are very spooky… There seemed to be some guiding hand making sure that the proper people were selected to play specific roles. And the scenario always seemed to deeply resonate with the client and open their reality to new possibilities.

2. Therapeutic results (when a constellation was ‘completed’) seemed to be gentle, and done with a minimum of interference.

3. I found the similarity to the NLP reimprinting process to be very interesting. Family Constellations seemed to be more timeless and automatically drew more broadly from the clients family and connections.

If you are interested in family constellations, and you are in the bay area, I recommend joining the local meetup group.

See you there!

How I perceive the world is the result of what filters I have on experience in any given moment.

As I understand it, the world is manifest from consciousness and consciousness is sustained by belief, because of this, I’ve discovered a new, profound respect for the power of belief.

So if I am exploring a practice which requires belief, the one sure way to not get results is to not believe…

I am very interested in exploring a variety of belief systems and their related practices. As I discover more things which “work” I am becoming less dogmatic and more open, and ending up with a better understanding of how it all fits together.
Coming from an engineering background, I wanted to share my process with you:

1. Find someone you respect and trust who holds an interesting set of beliefs. You can use referrals from friends you respect to help expand your circle of acquaintances. Be especially aware of people who have gained prominence recently, “When the student is ready, the teacher will come”.

2. Discover a practice that they recommend, perhaps a retreat or a training or a ritual you can do every day.

3. Do an ecology check: For instance, if you adopt this practice, will it take too much money? ruin my body? harm my loved ones? or hurt the environment? If so, abandon this practice and return to step #1

4. Decide how long you will do the practice. See how it works before you become too committed.

5. Use an internal ritual to take all your existing beliefs, doubts and criticisms, and put them into a mental “safe deposit box” for future reference. Put the box away in a safe place. Release the contents from your mind.

5. Model and adopt the beliefs of your friend as close as you can. Have faith in what you are doing.

6. Practice the new practice for the time you specified

7. Examine the new set of beliefs and pick the ones which seemed to be most useful.

8. restore your original beliefs from the “safe deposit box” then integrate the new useful beliefs into your system.

9. Observe how your perceptions have changed, then go back to step #1

I have a life coaching practice. I considered branding it with a Taoist theme, but I realized that the religions / spiritual connotations could scare away some people. So after some soul searching, I decided on a brand which would appeal to more people. Upon reflection, I serendipitously realized that my blog was already perfectly named to describe my coaching specialty…

As a life coach, I help people with the “Game of Self” I help athletes, business people, and people in transition discover more about the games they play, and improve their score! In particular I help my clients focus on their inner game.

The term “the inner game” was first coined by Timothy Gallwey in his seminal work The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance.

In this book, Gallwey discusses the difference between the “inner game” and the “outer game”. Where the “outer game” includes the techniques and skills needed to be a good player, the “inner game” is about having the right mental approach while practicing and playing.

Gallway went on to publish several more books, extending the concept of “inner game” to include books on “Golf”, “Work”, “Skiing” and “Stress”. Check out Timothy Gallway’s bibliography for more details.

The core principle of success at any inner game is the ability to remain confident, focused and relaxed.

Because of my leadership experience, my inside knowledge of games and my NLP and hypnosis skills, I am well suited to assist others in improving their inner game.

Take a deep breath, then imagine a future where you are more focused, more confident, and yet still comfortable and relaxed. Notice how your score has improved as you’ve increasingly mastered your inner game. Think of the joy and success you’ve experienced as you have gained more and more control of your mental state and learned to leverage the power of your mind. How does it feel to dominate the most important game of your life?? The Game of Self!

Make your move NOW, to transform your inner game: contact me by email or phone me at (510) 409-3660 to schedule a free 30 minute phone consultation.

I intend to improve this world, one game at a time!

I recently took another look at meetup, and I’m pretty impressed by how much the application has matured and noticed that its user base seems to have grown very quickly in the last year or so.

Of interest to me, I found two Bay Area NLP practice groups; the East Bay NLP Meetup Group and the San Francisco Bay Area Hypnosis and NLP Practice Group. In addition I found a Universal Healing Tao group. Just last night I attended the taoist group and was very impressed.

We did Mantak Chia’s “inner smile” Qi Gong set, and it was very pleasant being in this room with about 12 other people while spending the time to resonate with each of my five elements and their associated organs. I’ve discovered that doing any type of Qi exercise in groups can be very beneficial, because in addition to getting your own mind and body to harmonize, you’ve also got the other participants resonating with your energy, thus amplifying your strength, and improving the overall power and serenity of the result.
Attending this meetup were several students and instructors of Chi Nei Tsang, an abdominal massage system based on Taoist principles and taught by Mantak Chia.

Check out these other Mantak Chia Resources.

Oakland has a couple of great Taoist attractions: The West coast Chi Nei Tsang institute is located here. In addition, Dr. Alex Feng runs the Zhi Dao Guan – The Taoist Center which hosts a free Taoist Meditation class on the last Friday of every month.

If you live in the bay area, I highly recommend expanding your social circle by getting involved in any of the organizations mentioned above.