People Building

I have this friend who is highly articulate, imaginative, creative and pretty darn intelligent. She is the only person in my immediate network who has been educated at Oxford university (studying a degree in Classics). To be honest and with no intentional disrespect to the rest of my network, she’s the only one who could have ever gone to Oxford. Not because she is from one of those super affluent families, not because she was born any more clever than the rest of us, but because she worked a whole lot harder and what I think is the most important element of all, because she believed it was possible. Even though she is actually dyslexic.

At People Building we teach NLP to those is leadership and management positions and work with teams to improve sales skills. We also offer Neuro-linguistic programming training online and offer courses that answer the question: “Does hypnosis work?”

When you believe in what is possible, the opportunities can make themselves known to you. However “believing” in itself is an skill. It can be difficult to believe that you can dig for gold when everyone has shovels and drills and all you have access to is a spoon. It’s even more irritating to see those with shovels not using them and worse still to see those with shovels, not shoveling and yet still somehow getting to the gold!

All of these circumstances can be incredibly off-putting from action-taking. But just imagine if you were the person who “did it” in spite of not having the right tools…. An NLP Presuppositions says “Everyone has all of the resources the need to be successful” but sometimes the resources we need to take us to where we want to be are more than just the emotional states. Surely?

Time, money, education, understanding, energy, help, upbringing, opportunities, these too are all resources. If you do not have them, do you have the same potential to achieve as someone who does?

Lets imagine aliens invaded planet Earth. You need to get out of the town that you are in right now or else you are going to be zapped. You need to go as quickly as possible. Some people are leaving by helicopter, some by boats, others are driving away. But you don’t have a boat, a helicopter or even a car. In fact you don’t have a driving license. If you walk you’ll get zapped. So what are you going to do – sit back and die? What are your options? You could ask for a lift, you could get a motor bike, you could hitch hike, you could steal a car… The options are not ideal, but there are options. The only time you actually lack potential is when you fail to notice the options, and the only time you fail to notice the options, is when you believe that you are stuck.

As well as believing in what is possible, it’s also essential that if you are without resources, you are open to the idea of taking risks. Much bigger risks than those with resources would have to consider taking. In taking a risk it’s not just that you’re ok with the stress and anxiety that this brings, it’s also that you’re alright (to some extent) about your risk not paying off and making things potentially worse than they could have been without taking the risk at all.

When I was at college doing my NNEB, I worked really hard on a particular important aspect of the course. At the end of the course my college gave me a distinction for my portfolio, which was the highest grade achievable. I achieved this despite not doing that brilliantly in my GCSE’s, getting very ill with glandular fever for several months and despite my parents support being a little on the flaky side at times. Then came the news that the external verifier had asked for my work to be submitted to them for checking. My tutor called me to one side and explained that the college thought it best to downgrade my portfolio to a merit, in case the verifiers thought that the distinction award was too high for it. The risk was if the verifiers did downgrade it, they probably want to see everything I’d created for the last couple of years and there would then be a risk that some of the other work could be downgraded too.

I really felt I’d worked hard on that work, despite all the aggravation that had happened in my life throughout it. I’d believed the college when they said it was worth a distinction, it felt like it should be a distinction because I’d created something of a very high standard, and against the odds. Now they were telling me that they were not so sure. I was furious! If it was worth the award they had given it, they should have the conviction to stand by it. So I told them to keep it as a distinction and we’d see what happened. I had the belief and I was willing to take the risk.

As it happened the verifiers reported back to the college to say it was one of the best portfolios created in the country that year.

I’m not saying that believing and taking a risk pays off every time, I’ve got plenty of examples where it hasn’t. Relationships, investments, my first car(!) to name but a few.

There are definitely things that can help to accelerate your chances in being successful in what you want to do or be. If you have the time, patience and perseverance you can go without many or the other resources you might think you need to make the impossible possible. But you must believe and you must be prepared to take a calculated risk. Oh, and it must actually be a good idea to do it too!

So three things you need are belief, a good idea and the ability to take a calculated risk.

If it’s a good idea and you believe in it but you are not prepared to take the risk, you’ll never see it through.

If you take a risk and you believe in it but it’s a bad idea you’ll never be able to be successful at it, no matter how hard you try.

If it’s a good idea and you take the risk but you don’t believe in it, you’ll never be able to sell the idea to anyone else.

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People Building is an NLP and hypnotherapy training company offering free NLP resources such as free NLP PDF’s, NLP podcasts and hypnotherapy courses that answer the question: “Does hypnosis work?! We also provide corporate NLP training for those in leadership and management teams and NLP in business courses to increase sales skills for those who wish to improve communication and conversation techniques.

Call 0203 6677294 or email info@PeopleBuilding.co.uk or find out more at www.PeopleBuilding.co.uk