NICK: NLP tends to be a little bit like football clubs. You're either Manchester or you're Leeds United. You're either Arsenal or you're Chelsea. There's no in-between and of course we're the best.
AARON: Yes.
NICK: So in terms of learning, I think it's important to learn not only from other people in communication but also to explore and to look into what's outside the specific NLP or Hypnosis niche. For example, most people who have websites would do well to investigate someone like Steve Krug (K.R.U.G.) who are brilliant in terms of advice and displaying information on websites. The difficulty with a lot of NLP is that they just lock on to something and then suddenly have unleashed a thousand Frank clones or a thousand Richard Bandler clones all doing the same thing, not very well but claiming they are all brilliant. So I'm all for people actually creating new insights, new work, new approaches and having really good discussion about that. When you look at the way you experience both ... when you try things and it doesn't quite work or when you do things and it does work ... and on your blog you talk about how new therapists need to have as much fly time under their belt as possible.
AARON: When you started seeing therapists and also when you were doing your websites and things, how did you provide yourself with feedback? What type of criteria's were you looking at in order for you to improve?
NICK: Well simple things. In terms of websites, one of the simple things if you take a website as an example, one of the great things about a website is ... if you create a website it makes you think about what it is you actually do and what it is you're communicating. It's essentially an advert so what is it I actually want to say here? And that for many people is a simple, but not very easy question to actually answer. So a lot of websites are basically like fast food restaurants ... they just cover everything you know. I can do this, this, this, this, this and this. They don't have a clear intent. They don't have clear focus and they are not particularly specialised. On the mindscapes DVD I did with Doug O'Brien and Andy Austin, we were just talking about building a therapeutic practice and commonsense information. None of this 'You will earn £100,000 in 30 days if you subscribe to my newsletter on the secrets of the universe stuff'. Just commonsense, anecdotal information about what we find works and doesn't work. So in terms of websites, the simple thing is to do usability studies and get people to actually look at what you have, who are not involved in your industry and get them to give feedback. Honest and open feedback so that you can refine and see what's happening and what works best from their point of view. In terms of seeing clients, I didn't see any private clients for quite a few years because I didn't feel that at that time I had sufficient amount of skills and fly time to really justify charging people. So what I would do is that I would use as many opportunities as possible to work with people on a voluntary basis and ask questions and ask advice and really get my own thinking very, very, clear in terms of how to interact and work with people. Remembering of course that individuals who come to workshops are not the same as people who are members of the public. Each has paid to attend the workshop and has already got a vested interest in being there, so they are already hugely biased towards being appreciative of any approaches actually working.
AARON: They are primed in a certain way and know how to respond to the questions that you're asking.
NICK: Exactly. It's like the old musical joke, you know, where the magician says 'Ok, I'd like a member of the audience' and some young guy comes up and he says 'Right, so you've never seen me before in your life have you' and the young guy goes 'No dad'. So there is very much that element, and I have seen a lot demos and a lot of workshops and of course a lot of people who are trainers to do not see private clients. Even the best known trainers don't see private clients and I would love to ... absolutely ... and I've talked to Andy T about this ...have a situation where we say Ok, in a therapeutic context, let's have an independent evaluation of people seeing private clients, chosen by somebody else, who's not in the industry and see how people do, and for all the niche marketing, business persuasion gurus, let's see them work with a company, independently chosen, over a period of time, and let's see what they can practically do as well. A bit like Alan Sugar and the apprentices. Let's see what can be demonstrated beyond what's just written down.
AARON: It would be very interesting to see that, definitely.
NICK: I would be very surprised if many people took up the offer to do that. I would be very surprised. In Boulder, which I'm going to in a couple of weeks time, training with Steve and Richard Bolstad, the four days of the advanced mastery training is based around public client sessions. These are people who are coming from the outside who I have never seen before and have no knowledge of and who aren't part of the workshop. We're going to be working them and then discussing and feeding back case studies to the group. That's pretty unusual. Usually people are selected from within the paying audience of the event.
AARON: So it's actually at the beginning of your time seeing private clients, you kind of chilled out in a way and weren't so quick to get charging and get under way. You made sure that you felt in yourself that you were ready to see those clients and then you felt comfortable charging them for that.
NICK: Well I think ... look at this way ... if you got like a BMW and wanted to take it in for a service, you would want the mechanic to have the requisite skills and capabilities. Not somebody who did a weekend course, read a handbook and saw an article in the back of the News of the World. You want somebody ... well if it was still in business!
AARON: You wouldn't get that now.
NICK: You would want somebody who has actually spent the time and dedication and has an insight into what's possible and what can be done. I mean Frank ... Frank Farrelly ... made a wonderful comment once, when we were talking about the whole growth of NLP etc, etc, which was 'How can anybody be a master of anything in a few weeks' which I thought was quite astute really. So just having a title declaring that you have a capability and lets also remember that people confuse certification which has no commercial value at all really with a qualification, which is quite different. This isn't to say that there aren't skilled people, because there are some very, very, skilled people out there and not necessarily people I agree wit, but they can be very effective in their own ways. But it's really about let's see the evidence of what people can demonstrate in reality, rather than what is just blurted out on news groups, and now we have a trend of endless secret reports and god knows what else turning up. Let's actually see some real evidence for this. That's the real proof.
AARON: Ok. So if we were to ask who your influences have been in order to get you to the standard that you're respected for today ... you talked a lot about Frank Farrelly and I can see that he is a huge influence on you ... maybe we can talk a little bit about that and other people who have influenced you as well.
NICK: Yeah. I mean there are people who are definitely from a therapeutical NLP background, Steven Brooks from an Ericksonian hypnosis point of view. I got his Indirect Hypnosis VHS tape back in the 90's. Truly excellent. I mean really very, very, capable. Other people who I really hang around with at the moment. Doug O'Brien from New York. Excellent trainer. One of the few people I would actually be able to sit through one of their products. Hypnosis products because of his exquisite ability to work with using Ericksonian hypnosis.
AARON: Right.
NICK: Other individuals would be Dave Dobson, who a lot of people won't know about, who sadly passed away in recent years, who was a very, very, talented guy and his 'Fun Shops' CD series and his 'On The Beach' induction was superb. Andrew T Austin, the wonderful Andrew T Austin. Hugely talented, maverick thinker. Genuinely caring person with real skills and not afraid to ask the tough questions. Again, somebody who brings something different, specially his new metaphors of movement work and IMT? work. Really interesting stuff.
AARON: Ok.
NICK: Steven and Connirae Andreas. They are both very different. I was talking to Connirae last night about the Changeworks Workshop I'm doing before the AAMT? She's one smart person and very capable. And Steve of course, both as an editor, a trainer and a writer, does not suffer fools gladly and God Bless, the world needs more people like Steve and Connirae
AARON: He's been around a long time.
NICK: Outside of that, I think it's important to think of inspiration coming from lots of different places, so in the field of communication and acting, people like Andy Kaufman, Bill Hicks, Eddie Izzard. In musicians, people like Bill Frizzell, Martin Simpson who I saw earlier today. All these people bring a degree of skills and creative capabilities. Woody Allen would be another one. Aaron Sorkin who was a screen writer for the West Wing. They are all inspirations in different ways. Most NLP'rs stay very much within the niche of NLP and don't really investigate other things and I think that's a mistake.
AARON: I can see how you could bring a whole host of other influences outside of NLP to make it a whole lot better. Or any area that you choose. Be it NLP or Hypnosis or anything like that. One of the things that's quite good about you is that you make it very evident that you have a life outside of therapy and hypnosis and things like that on your blog and your facebook page and things.
NICK: I think it's really important. The question that I have is if somebody is literally sitting, writing endless reams of information on a news group day in day out, my advice is switch off the computer, walk outside and get some fresh air, because that's a very limited perspective. I think what tends to happen is that people get far too precious about certain ideas and about certain ways of thinking. My interest is really what is useful and what is effective for different people. And I disagree with some of my ideas from years ago. You know. I'm not particularly interested in who's right. I'm interested in the actual what's useful and what's helpful for people. Either in business, personal development or a therapeutical context.
AARON: Good. So we've talked already about how you're quite vocal about how people brand themselves within NLP and things like that ...
