NLP: An Investment or a Fee

Michael Berman, UK

Michael Berman's published work includes The Power of Metaphor for Crown House, The Nature of Shamanism and the Shamanic Story for Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Shamanic Journeys through the Caucasus and Shamanic Journeys, Shamanic Stories for O-Books, Journeys outside Time for Pendraig Publishing, and Tales of Power for Lear Books. A Bridge to the Other Side: Death in the Folk Tradition and Georgia through Earth, Fire, Air and Water are both due to be published by Moon Books in 2012. ELT publications include A Multiple Intelligences Road to an ELT Classroom, In a Faraway Land (a resource book for teachers on storytelling), On Business and for Pleasure (a self-study workbook), and English Language Teaching Matters, written with Mojca Belak and Wayne Rimmer. For more information please visit www.Thestoryteller.org.uk

When you talk about investments most people automatically think about monetary rewards. “How can I invest my money in order to make more money out of it?” Is that the case for you? Good investments in this case could be ones where, there is no risk to you losing your capital, where there is a good financial return on the money invested, where you can have access to your investment without notice, where you make money quickly. And there is certainly nothing wrong with this type of investment, but what about investments in relationships?

There is a trend in the advertising of “New Age” type courses for those who facilitate them to ask for an investment rather than a fee, in particular in the case of training in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming).

It leaves me to wonder what the investment or fee for a failed relationship is or whether the experience learnt from it is necessarily worth the price you have to pay in terms of the time spent (or wasted) and suffering endured along the way.

Here are some examples of NLP advertising taken from a search on the Internet, but with names and prices removed:

For the One Day Certificate in NLP your investment is only £_____. This covers your training materials, refreshments and lunch and is refundable against any further course you book with us.

For the NLP Master Practitioner your investment is only £_____. This All Inclusive price represents exceptional value and includes; Five Internationally recognised certifications, VAT, Pre course Coaching support, Training manuals for all subjects, Two modules each of 8 days live training, Refreshments and Lunch on the first day of each module, Car Parking, Post course Coaching and Support.

And some extracts from another example:

If you asked 100 people what they would like more of in life, what do you think that they would say? ”Happiness” would have to be up there wouldn’t it? “Love” would also be there. A lot of people would say money and then if you ask them “what would money get you?” they would say happiness probably or security. So let us take happiness, and love. Most people want more happiness and love in their lives, after all what else is there in the end?

In a survey that I read recently people on their deathbeds were asked what they wish they had done differently. The most popular answer was “I wish that I had allowed myself to be happier.”

So, what is stopping us from being happy? Is it life’s circumstances, the weather, the traffic, the moods of others around us? We can’t control these things but we can control our attitude towards them.

The difference between being happy and sad is how we interpret and process our circumstances. It comes down to our thinking. Success starts in the mind, and our outer world reflects our inner world. If we control our thoughts and the way that we respond to events in our life, then we begin to control our destiny and our happiness.

NLP Training provides vital tools to enable you to start to control your thinking, to empower you through communication and thinking excellence. The quality of your thinking will determine the quality of your life and so what better investment can you make than taking an NLP Training?

So join us on an NLP Training Course today.

***

Looking back on my past, I find myself now considering whether some of the relationships I had were necessarily a good investment, and one in particular comes to mind.

Once upon a time there was a stunningly beautiful Dutchwoman and men were queuing up for her. For me she was thus the ultimate challenge and by offering her all sorts of enticements I “got” her in the end.

In fact, looking back, the enticements I offered her were in fact just sacrifices I made. These included agreeing to become a vegetarian, no great crime, and giving up a new flat I had just bought and a good job with prospects in London to migrate to France and to buy a home there. But I was in such a state of intoxication I would have done anything to hold on to her at the time, and I am ashamed to say I did.

So I handed in my notice, sold my flat in a hurry and at a considerable loss, bought a van to store our possessions in, and we set off together by ferry across the Channel in it. France turned out to be a non-starter though, because of the high cost of purchasing suitable property in the region we were hoping for, so we moved across the border into Catalonia instead. There I found a job and we ended up buying a house in a pine forest near Girona that my nemesis fell in love at first sight with. It was a three-bedroom single storey whitewashed building in the foothills of the Pyrenees where the nearest neighbour was half an hour’s walk away and the only form of heating was firewood I had to chop up with an axe and collect myself in preparation for the winter of my discontent that was to follow. No roads only tracks, no public transport, no phone line and definitely no mod cons because the plague of my life’s aim all along had been to move back to nature and eventually for us to be self-sufficient wherever we settled. As for me however, I had no clue how to survive in such an environment, having lived in cities all my life, and no particular desire to live in such a remote location either.

In the end all my efforts proved to have been in vain, as she left me for another woman in any case, but only after I had been stupid enough to sign over half of the of the ownership of the property to her to provide her with the security she was after, even though it had been entirely my savings that had paid for it. In fact, she had no need at all for any of the money she made out of me because her father was a millionaire - a former doctor who had apparently made his fortune by developing a brand of cosmetics especially for coloured women in South Africa where he had settled. Funny how rich people can be so mean with what they have, and the money the house was eventually sold for I never saw again so I had to start from scratch once I eventually got back to England.

At the time I blamed her for all my woes, but looking back on the experience I now realize I brought everything that befell me on myself, that we are ultimately responsible for everything that happens to us and I was not the victim of circumstance I then thought I was.

So was it a fee or an investment I paid for the time I had with her? On reflection it was in fact an investment, albeit one that nearly destroyed me, as I learnt how to value myself as a result and made a vow I have kept ever since that I would never sell my soul to the devil again as long as I lived.

Please check the NLP for Teachers course at Pilgrims website.