a million wishes

photo: who has lost a magic wand by Pσrcelαΐηgΐrl°


Having lunch with Chris West, and discussing an NLP book I wanted to a way to get across the optimism, and humanity that I find in NLP. I offered Chris the following thought experiment.

Think of all those stories where someone receives three wishes - and is either filled with contradictory urges about what to wish for, or wishes for something that ends up messing up their lives.

Now imagine that somehow a million wishes had been offered to you (and if you think that a million is not enough, you can always use one of that million to wish for a billion more...). Now what would you do with those wishes?

I can summarize what the people who I've offered this experiment to say as

'Well I'd wish for certain things for myself, then I'd start thinking about what I could do for other people.'

I have not met anyone who genuinely put themselves in this imaginary position, and who would use their wishes to wreak havoc in the lives of others.

Perhaps I should ask this of some of our society's demons - murderers, fundamentalists, terrorists. I have not done that yet.

I can imagine that certain people would go through a period or wrath and revenge with their wishing. I can also imagine them coming out of it into something more generous.

One of life's questions is how do we navigate those situations where the fearful and angry have the power to wound and kill. Soldiers, politicians, therapists, scientists, and philosophers all have different ways of answering that.

Of course we live in a world where we do not have the power to simply wish anything into, or out of existence, even though we may have more power in changing aspects of our lives than we think.

For me NLP, or any other form of genuine personal development, is about moving in a direction where we have more choice. That choice leads to greater compassion and greater generosity.

We may live in a way where we have three or fewer wishes at our disposal. But we can still aim for the expansiveness of a million wishes.

NLP and coaching can help us in this journey by developing increasingly effective methods that to navigate and transform the dangers of our current reality.

So what would you first ten wishes, your hundredth, and your thousandth wish be?

Knowing a cup of tea

Photo Nice Cup of Tea by snappysmashingbloke

This is another thought experiment. I like this one as a way of getting less certain about how much we know. I like being less certain about how much I know, because it loosens up my mental models, and helps keep me enjoying life in fresh, new ways. Loosening mental models is also a good exercise in developing new ones - also known as learning.


Simply take a household object (a cup, a pillow, a book...) and spend 20-30 minutes noticing everything about it you possibly can. Look at it from all angles, touch, listen to and smell it (taste it?).

Do you think you know everything about it yet? Are there parts that you cannot see - can your senses really catch everything about it?

Are there details too small, too subtle, too hidden to notice? If you think you know everything then ask yourself this...

Would a dog/electron microscope/dolphin or amoeba have a different knowledge of this object than you?

Can you know everything about where it came from and how it was made?

In which case can you still say you know everything about it?

And if you can't know everything about something as simple as a cup what can you be certain that you really know?....

Getting into your Skull

Photo Frazier Mtn~ 12/09/05 by FrazierMtnMom

In the Norse creation myth three brothers Odin, Vili and Ve made the earth from the body of a giant called Ymir. They made the sky from his skull and the clouds from his brains. Norse stories do not skimp on blooody anatomical detail.

Neuroscience suggest that what we perceive as being outside of ourselves is actually a model constructed by our minds. In other words everything under the sky is actually inside our skulls...

In this thought experiment try to remain conscious of this idea. Whenever you experience something as outside of you remember that you are creating the representation of that thing in the space between your ears.

Do this for a day and notice what happens.

Then as the zen saying goes, you may be able to drink the Pacific ocean in a single gulp.

Photo: Pacific Ocean by shesnuckinfuts