The Secret - not everyone's cup of tea

Now there are plenty of people out there who seem to loooove the secret, a film that has become an underground best seller, if that is not an oxymoron, based on the 'Law of Attraction'.

Now it is not hard to see why so many people like the secret. In lots of ways I do. It is well made, with pretty visuals, consistent special effects, short sentences, stirring music, period costumes, rampaging mobs, conspiracy theories, love interests and boundless, boundless optimism.

Basically the Law of Attraction says, if you truly ask for something from the Universe, the universe will grant your wish....

That's right, anything.

The film is full of happy stories of people who have had their wish granted. The delighted witnesses explain having spent some time putting their attention on the things that they do not want, struggling with illness, debt and hate they learn to shift their attention. The moment their thoughts turn to love, health and wealth (lots of that) it arrives by the bucketful.

Interspersed with the secret success stories, various authorities explain how the secret works according to the laws of the universe as proved by quantum physics, feng shui etc.

You may detect a circumspect and unconvinced tone to my words. Well, I did say I quite like the film, and I do. I also think that I have an anarchist streak that dislikes the idea of having yet another Law imposed on me, however attractive it may be.

Also I tend to like things simple. Why use a magical explanation when a simple one will do?

I agree that if you focus on what you want, rather than not getting what you do not want then you have a much better chance of getting it. However we can easily explain a lot of this in terms of cognitive strategies. Things like noticing opportunities, or having a pleasant personality, and good non verbal communication can explain much of what is going on, possibly all of it.

To not take this into account is to encourage sloppy thinking, and I value the ability to think clearly.

Coincidence could explain a lot more, at least if that is something you believe in. I would recommend Derren Brown's book Tricks of the mind - and the section on pseudoscience if you want to get a different juicy sense of the way 'our thoughts create reality.'

I do agree that our thoughts create, or at least effect reality. All inventions start with thoughts, and so do many arguments, wars etc. If I didn't think that the way we think has an huge impact on how we live, I wouldn't be in the line of work I do. But the correlation is not 100%. I recently read a man propose this little test for people who think that thoughts create reality.

1. How many people have you thought about sleeping with
2. How many people have you actually slept with?

You may find some discrepancy between the thoughts and the reality...Naturally manifesters will have some arguments to defend the LoA against this test, and I agree it's hardly conclusive. But it did make me smile, so I thought I'd share it.

I think getting people to notice a relation between their thoughts and the life they live is a pretty healthy intention. I question whether dressing up the idea in terms of dream houses, jewelry, money and magic is anything more than a shallow commercial decision. I also wonder if it will lead people to do lots of affirming, and not much action, followed by disappointment both in the world, and the value of their thoughts.

More optimistically all the shiny promise of the video could lead someone out of a mechanistic view of life and create all kinds of new possibilities. It can also open the door on the hall of mirrors of believing and seeing, seeing and believing. I believe that loosening up people's grip on truth and reality is in most cases a step in a good direction.

Some people dislike the Law of Attraction, because if it is true then all the people dying horribly around the world, and around history are suffering because they willed it upon themselves. Perhaps a consignment or two of the Secret DVD's would swiftly lead to a new era of peace and enlightenment in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan...I'm certainly wishing them peace...

Now, being a relatively rational NLP person I propose a Law of Attraction technique/experiment, neatly summarized in a few numbered steps, with clear instructions, and some feedback to see how the experiment is going. It is not ready yet, but I can see it manifesting very soon, honestly.

Here is a clip of the secret for you to get some of the flavour...If you want to watch the whole film, I recommend watching it with the whole of your brain.

An outcome you cannot argue with

Death & Life by Darius twin


A wide range of psychotherapeutic, spiritual, and extreme sports traditions all have one thing in common. In fact we all have this in common, and no it is not skin, or taxes. It is death.

In our culture death is a strange subject. We are all going to die, but it is not something many of us like to think about very much. Naturally we get reminded fairly regularly as people we know come to the ends of their lives.

We also get to see plenty of death in the media, usually at an abstractly comfortable distance. It could be in the news, or in a TV series where the bad guys are little more than targets for the hero.

Now I have no idea what happens when we die, though I have met plenty of people who have beliefs in this area. Given this uncertainty about our only certainty, living people use death in a number of ways.

Obviously death gets used as a threat, which works less well if you believe that you get some kind of celestial five star service on the other side.

Others use death as a leveler - it links Presidents and beggars, it is something we share, a common facet of our humanity. It can bring us together.

The extreme sports people use the imminent possibility of death to add spice to life. People nearing the ends of their lives often talk of the extraordinary delight they have in the most ordinary things that they encounter.

We can also use death as a way to examine our priorities and values. As Buddhists put it 'the only certainty in life is death, and the time of our death is uncertain. Knowing that, what shall I do now?'

As a recent training came to a close, I used a meditation on death to mark its ending. It is something that I learned from the fool while we were training people in a petrochemical company. I don't know where he learned it, he may have simply made it up.

Some of the students asked if I could record some the meditations that we use, because they find it easier to follow this way. It seems a little perverse that the first one I record should be on death, but as Stephen Covey puts it, begin with the end in mind. Also I recognize that it is something that I could benefit from doing more often.



You can listen online, or download and share, as you will.

Tricks of the mind

If you are UK, or Youtube, based there is a good chance that you know about Derren Brown.

Derren has made several television series that mix Hypnosis, stage magic, cold reading and NLP to some very amusing effect. Well amusing to me anyway.

Here is an example of Derren at work on TV this one showing how easy it can be to trick martial artists...




One of Derren's values is to state clearly that he is using tricks and skills rather than special powers to do some of the amazing things that he does.

His book, tricks of the mind is written in what I would describe as a 21st century Victorian style. I found it quite amusing, but it may not be everyone's taste.

Derren is scathing about mediums, and people who believe in psychic powers (especially his own). He covers his interest in magic tricks, hypnosis, memory, NLP, the nature of belief, and pseudo-science. He has particular disdain for people who use built in human gullibility to take advantage of vulnerable people.

All of this he mixes with anecdotes from his time as Christian with the annoying habit of trying to convert his friends, as well as stories stemming from his TV series and the consequences of his public image.

There is a chapter on mnemonic techniques which I he combined a largely narrative style with a description of the techniques. Reading it I tried out some of what he suggested, and it worked well enough for me to want to read more. It is an area that I have not really looked into, so I had a rapid and fruitful learning curve.

I also enjoyed the chapter on pseudo-science and the nature of beliefs - which is a themes throughout the book. He gives some very clear and lucid examples of how science works, the nature of statistics, and how it is easier to believe something vivid but false, than prosaic but true. Plenty of food for thought for me there.

Another part of the book skims through his brief time with NLP. He points out that NLP has it's ow brand of 'true believer' and that there is an infuriating percentage of NLPers who insist on applying their techniques whether people want them or not. Another theme that runs through the book is the tendency of people to depend on special skills (hypnosis, magic etc) as a substitute for personality and human contact.

Derren describes his experiences and disillusionment on following one of Richard Bandler's trainings (RB was one of the founder's of NLP). He cites the large number of people, the lack of assessment, and the use ofcharisma of to dominate reason.

On the other hand he values NLP enough to include a number of concepts and techniques, notably the phobia cure, swish, some aspects of eye accessing cues and sensory language.

I tend to agree with many of his criticisms of NLP. Still I think it is a shame if he is basing his comments on the one 4 day 400 person training with the field's most controversial figure. There are people offering NLP training with high standards of ethics, tuition and assessment. I would say that, naturally.

If you read the book expecting to learn how Derren does some of the things he does on TV, you will be disappointed. But he does give hints and pointers that you could use to develop skills either to do it yourself, or make some pretty informed guesses as to how he manages it. He also gives some useful information so that you can avoid people doing some of that tricky stuff on you as well.

I liked the books mix of first person narrative, passionate opinion, bizarre humour and examples. I finished with some new ways of looking at the world, some old ways refreshed, and a list of questions I'd ask if I ever met Derren in the pub.

Two moments to change your life

photo: in between drinks by paoliina



Have you ever found yourself in a situation, repeating some behaviour that you do not like? It could be something like acting shy, hesitating, getting angry, hopelessness, turning on the TV, reaching for junk food...The list could be endless, and is most likely uniquely personal.

Even if you do not have anything you actively dislike,you may find something that you would like to improve.

Now once you get into the situation, and the behaviour that you do not like many people find that there is a certain momentum, or unconsciousness to it. Either it becomes hard to change in the moment, or people do not realise that there is actually a choice to be made.

So what are the two moments where you can change your life? There is in between, and there is during. As I mentioned above, during is not easy. The moment slips by, and is gone, leaving you cursing, stamping your feet and saying 'Oh no, not again!', or whatever it is that you do and say after whatever it is you did or didn't do or say.

But during is possible, especially if you do some work in between. In fact many NLP techniques are designed for in between - that is after the last situation and before the next one.

What I'd like to introduce as an in between practise is something that can easily slip in during. Let us have a look at what happens during. You find yourself in a state that is not appropriate to the situation, and there is little sense of choice about it in the moment.

So the in between practise is to cultivate the ability recognise and break state, then to choose a new more appropriate one.

If you are looking for a way to change your behaviour then you probably are already aware enough to recognise the unwanted state, sometimes at least. So I will not focus there. I will mention that one of the roles of meditation is to have discernment in the recognition and tracking of states.

Now I'd rather concentrate on breaking from one state and moving into the next.

There are many ways to break state. Doing something different with your posture is one. Deliberately changing internal dialogue is another. Going from associated to a meta position (looking at yourself as if from the outside) is another. If you practise all of these in between, so that you can do them more easily during.

So you can practise giving yourself a clear command to stop!, or change!, while changing your posture or gesturing and taking a step to position where you could see yourself in the unresourceful state, as if from the outside.

From here you can begin to choose a new state. Now what state would be a good state to choose from? For now I will recommend curiosity, and I will talk about it later. I hold a lot of store by curiosity - and will probably write more about its virtues in another post, along with the components of good decision making states.

With curiosity then you can really ask 'What do I want here?' with the possibility of getting an original, and useful answer.

Once you have an answer you can begin to take it on. You can go back into memories of when you had the quality or behaviour that you want. If you have no memories you can think of someone else who could be that way, or imagine as if you could be that way. Use your imagination until it changes your posture (or change your posture directly), your voice tone, and your state altogether.

Then get on with things in your new state - et voila you have changed your life!

Like any new skill or technique it is often helpful to start by rehearsing in a clear, even exaggerated fashion. Unless your are training yourself to stop being self-conscious, or embarrassed in public you may choose to do this phase in private.

As you practise this in between, it will become increasingly reflexive to interrupt and choose more resourceful states. With further practise the whole process of breaking state, choosing a new one and taking it on becomes smoother and more discrete. It need only take a moment or two.

Our states can change very quickly. Why not change them in a direction of your choosing?

How to be a regular Exerciser

Photo: Akuzawa Minoru demonstrates his body control and balance with the assistance of a heavier partner



Whether or not you are motivated by sport, the condition of your body makes a big difference on your daily experience, your health, and how well you perform in other areas of your life.

On top of the actual experience of enjoying a well conditioned body, there is also a host of statistical evidence that positively relates regular moderate exercise to health. It makes sense to exercise.

At the same time many people do not exercise regularly. I am not going to ask why not? That question has the wonderful effect of helping entrench people in their reasons 'why not.'

Rather I am going to to go over some of the mental strategies that regular exercisers use.

1. Enjoy exercise
Enjoyment and pleasure is a state, an attitude. There are certain kinds of exercise that are probably beyond my ability to do, so I will not do them. However there is plenty within my range that I can do safely, and at a level of effort that is not simply excruciating.

Then I can simply take satisfaction in the fact that I am doing the exercise.

I was talking to a fellow coach recently who has gone through a revolution in her attitude to exercise. She used to be overweight and started to see a personal trainer, and is now light and happier.

She stopped seeing the trainer regularly (a good trainer, like a good coach seeks to make themselves redundant after a short time) and someone asked her if she was still doing her exercises. She replied with a smile 'Yes I am, and I shall continue to do them for as long as I'm living' .

Then she explained ' I used to see slim people running, and I'd wonder if they are slim why do they have to run? Now I understand, it is because they run that they are slim.'

Incidentally this transformation took place when she was in her sixties.

Health and fitness are as much processes as goals. You do not stop doing them because you have 'arrived'. If they are a process that you continue through your life you may as well enjoy it.

2.Take pleasure in physical effort
This is an interesting illustration of how the way we interpret physical sensation determines our attitude to a situation.

When people who do not enjoy exercise train any effort is considered tortuous misery. Effort is proof of how unfit they are, and possibly a reminder of childhood humiliation. I was the last to be picked for the team as well, I know that feeling.
When people who like to exercise train the sensation of effort remains the same, however the interpretation changes. Exercisers link effort with their goals. Effort is proof that they are moving in the direction of how fit they would like to be, and thus becomes a source of satisfaction, even in the moment that it is happening.

An extreme example of this is the saying 'Pain is weakness leaving the body.' It is probably a little too extreme for me though.

3. Get curious about movement and the body
The body is wonderfully complex. There are so many possibilities of movement, and these link in to your mental state. You can never exhaust the possibility of learning from movement.

Moshe Feldenkrais distinguished between two kinds of exercisers. One kind equates exercise with raw effort. The harder you exercise, the better it is. The second type gets curious about how relaxed and efficient they can be when they move.

The first type tends to perform poorly, get injured, and create muscle imbalances across their bodies. When you see them run there is lots of movement, but not much speed. The result is that they try harder. As they age they accumulate bad habits.

The second has a sense that they can always improve their performance, that they can relax a little more, become slightly more efficient, slightly more graceful. So they constantly pay attention to how they are moving, how their body works. In this refinement they have many opportunities for enjoying the sheer flowing pleasure of movement.

For this reason I do not like health clubs with their habit of distracting people from what they are doing using music and video. It is the possibility of improving the quality of an exercise through attention that makes it interesting.

Take a Yoga or Taiji class where the exercise is slowed down enough to really put the mind into the body. That way you can make distinctions between different ways of doing the same external movement.

If you do not know what I'm talking about find someone with some skill and enthusiasm for movement and get invite them to share their fascination with you.

In making these kinds of changes you can explore all kinds of possibilities for physical pleasure. Yes, you can read that last statement in any way you like.

Being able to make distinctions in physical movement/sensation is also a great way of increasing emotional intelligence and sensitivity.

4. Use a mix of motivations
You can motivate yourself towards what we want or away from what we do not want.

As a competitive martial artist I used to live in a unspoken arms race with my my classmates. If we let the others get fitter or more skilled than us, then we would be literally beaten. It was a good motivation strategy - we worked hard to escape black eyes and humiliation. But it was also stressful, partly because there is always someone bigger, fitter and possibly more skilled who could well hit you.

A more reasonable away from is to move away from the bad feelings associated with being unhealthy and out of shape.

I have also motivated myself towards what I want, whether that is the image of me looking a particular way, or feeling a particular way, or receiving a particular compliment on how you look or perform.

Personally I believe that health and fitness are much more of a feeling than a look. So for me appearance is more a result of something deeper than an end in itself, however ripped and glossy the images in the fitness magazines are.

These days I picture myself blissfully freediving, having longer to enjoy the wonders of the ocean, and that makes me want to cycle faster climb more stairs and work harder on my circuits.

Another motivation is the way exercise and food relate. I like food, and food tastes better when you are really physically hungry. Therefore exercise is a way of enjoying food more. More accurately it is a way of enjoying more food more!

Comparisons with yourself and others can be motivating sometimes, but not always. I know people who I will probably never be as fit as, and also I probably won't be as fit as I was when I was a professional martial artist. If I compare myself to those times I risk being disheartened.

However if you compare yourself to some standard that you consider both possible, and worthwhile, then it can help get you going. The good thing about this is that as you reach one goal, then you may believe another is possible.

The expense of a health club membership does not work for many people as a motivation. think it is better to cut out the middle man and go straight to a personal trainer if you have the money to spend.

5. Integrate it into your life
Do you mind if I have another rant about health club culture...I used to cycle to a club I taught in that was couple of miles outside of a small town. I would be passed by a number of cars that I would find in parked a few minutes later. The people in the cars would be on stationary bikes, peddling away. It is the same with people who use stair machines and then take lifts. Not the most efficient use of time or energy.

Life presents all kinds of opportunities for mild to moderate exercise, whether stairs, carrying objects, using your body as a means of transport - cycling, walking, jogging. The latter can save you money, not to mention cut down on CO2 emissions while getting you fitter.

Considering it only takes 10 seconds to for an Olympic athlete to totally exhaust themselves in a sprint, exercise need not take a long time. Ten or fifteen minutes here and there can maintain a reasonable fitness level, boost metabolism and mental function. Even busy people can fit that in.

I have a friend who decides he will have a press up day. He sets a timer to go off every 40 minutes or so, and when it does he finds a place where he can (relatively) discretely pump out a set of press ups. He treats it like a game. You could even invite people to join in!

You can also integrate exercise with being sociable, dancing, playing football. When I lived in Taiwan people gathered in parks for all kinds of exercise, in the early morning and also in the evening. You could see ballroom dance, hip-hop, aerobics, and martial arts. You can also find people training in the wide corridors of shopping centres and underpasses.

They would also spend a chunk of that time chatting and getting to know each other. The younger ones would be displaying themselves to members of the opposite sex too. Exercise is very much built into that culture.

There are scores of opportunities for integrating exercise into your life, and if you have some influence you can make it easier for other people around you at the same time.


So whether you are have a long neglected sport, or never liked sports the key to regular exercise in attitude that it can be enjoyable, that effort is itself a pleasure, and that there are always a opportunities for both practise, and improvement.

I have deliberately not gone into the technicality of exercise, just the attitudes that sustain it. If you are already a regular exerciser and have some other attitude that you would like to add to this then I'll be happy to read it.

In the mean time train well and have fun!

Living treasures

Luo De Xiu pushing me at his seminar in Rennes 2006

There are people I meet who inspire me. They have such knowledge, grace or skill that I think it would be a great loss to humanity if they were to disappear from the planet.

Some of my martial arts teachers fall into this category. I always feel amazed when I see the grace, power and clarity of their movement.

Some of my NLP or Hypnosis teachers as well. They have a combination of refined skill, and a deep humanity. Most often they have a sparkle to their eye and a shining enthusiam for life.

Probably you know someone, or you know of someone who you view this way. If you do not go out and find someone, and spend some time with them.

Our society honours these people, or at least some of them. They may receive prizes and awards. Their funerals are well attended. This is doubly true if the area of their mastery is something that the media finds it easy to sell.

Yet I think it is strange that I and others may value these people more than others. I have difficulty with the idea that intrinsically one person is worth more than another.


However amazing these people are to me, they are also just people. If you have no interest in martial arts, my teacher Luo would just be a personable man with big forearms. If you had no interest in therapy or change Frank Farrelly would just be a charming grandfather figure with a knack for stories.

Yet I believe there is something that comes when people dedicate their attention, their presence in a deliberate way. This could be to an art or skill, to social networks, business, or family.

Contrast this with the attentionless consumption of food/television. I will include in this the accumulation of money - with the sole intention of using it for mindless consumption described in the sentence above.

Somehow the first has the possibility of creating something, of contributing to humanity. The latter ....

Of course I think there are very few people who fall purely into one camp or another. I know that I dedicate a good amount of time developing skill I can pass on, share and I intend can contribute to people's lives.

I also can drop into mindless consumption. I have been found at two in the morning, the remote control in my hand flicking between the world's worst police chases, and some science fiction film that I did not quite see when I was fifteen.
That usually happens when I'm tired. Changing channels feels a lot harder than climbing the stairs to my bed. So from an NLP point of view my behaviour does have a positive intention - to rest.

Still when I look at my life I think that I will not get much satisfaction or pleasure just looking for things to consume, whether crap TV, or great films, junk food or three star Michelin meals.

I think the sparkling eyes, the shining enthusiasm the deep satisfaction come from investigation, curiousity, a happily hopeless dedication to some kind of perfection.

Personally I am dedicated to the riddle of what it is to be human on this planet. I do not ever expect to get reach a perfect solution, just deeper levels of humour, subtlety and attention. Each client I work with is a source of fascination, because they tell me the riddle in a new way. Later I'll do some work in the anarchy of my garden. The plants there will join the riddling.

Just thinking about it lifts the corners of my mouth and brightens what I look at.

So what are you dedicated to perfecting? Where is your fascination, your curiousity?