Resolving Conflicts With Your Father Using NLP 06/15 by The Organic View | Blog Talk Radio.
Great interview with author of ‘Psychobabble’ Donna Blinston on resolving conflict with NLP.
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Does 14 books in the NLP Top 100 make us the UK’s No.1 independent NLP Publishers?
NLP books is a large and competitive market with a quick look at Amazon UK yielding 1,751 books listed and some quite heavyweight publishers involved. Of course the big named gurus are there in the top 100 with Richard Bandler and Paul McKenna with several titles and the ‘Dummies’ series expanding out to several titles too.
We often see ourselves (MX Publishing) as an independent who specialise in publishing subject specific NLP books. We started in the field back in 2006 with Seeing Spells Achieving which has helped tens of thousands of children with learning difficulties (including dyslexia) and our current best-selling book Stop Bedwetting in 7 Days which continues to grow a big fan base – because it has worked for thousands of children.
These applications of NLP are too niche for a big publishing house and indeed, some of our authors are publishing their more general NLP books with the big boys – and that’s quite all right with us. We know our place in the food chain as a medium-sized independent.
With 20+ authors and 14 books in the top 100 in the UK does that mean we are the leading independent in NLP? Maybe, but actually it doesn’t really matter. For us it is about being able to publish NLP books that make a positive impact on people’s lives. It may sound a little trite, but we’re not in publishing for the big bucks [we’d have accepted a lot of bad but mass market books if that was the case].
MX Publishing is best described as a ’cause-led’ publisher. We have several streams from Victorian literature through to NLP but one thing binds them all. We publish books that we can get passionate about [note: a few exceptions in our early years when bills had to get paid…..] and we are fortunate that we can stay true to that.
One of our proudest moments was when Keith Hern was interviewed on ITV’s This Morning as an advocate for throat cancer awareness. His interview reached millions and his book Bangers and Mash has been acclaimed by cancer units all around the world from the USA, UK to Tasmania. A quick read through the sixteen 5-star reviews on Amazon and you can see the passion with which people talk about Keith’s book. This year we published our fourth book on NLP and cancer – Rosie O’Hara’s inspirational book on breast cancer No More Bingo Dresses and once again five star passionate reviews abound.
As we are smaller, we can be relatively agile and have been able to embrace social media (5800+ members of our NLP Books Facebook Page), overall more than 60,000 followers on Twitter and we sell books in more than 20 countries in already about 8 formats from Kindle, to Kobo, Overdrive to iBooks (iPad and iPhone).
There’s much we can improve and especially we want to generate links and collaboration with NLP organisations in the USA and worldwide. We have some great titles that do a lot of good and want to get them in the hands of as many practitioners as possible.
So if you are involved in NLP and would like to get engaged with lots of books that have practical applications then please get in touch – trade@mxpublishing.co.uk.
What Is The Most Loved NLP Book In The World? It’s The Most Hated One. Should it be renamed the Marmite Guide to NLP?
There is a vegetable spread called Marmite which plays on the fact that people either love it or hate it. On TV adverts people gush about it, or end up hitting the poor man inside the giant Marmite jar. Such has been the reaction to Going Mental, the new NLP coaching book from Jakob Lovstad. People either love it, or they hate it – nothing in between.
It should not have been a surprise for us as a publisher. The author himself warned us when we first read the manuscript that some of his views could be considered ‘harsh’ and indeed when one of the founders of NLP, John Grinder, reviewed the book [his review appears on the back of the book in full] he echoed Jakob’s words that opinion on the book would be polarised. Grinder did say that the book was a must read for all NLP practitioners as it prompts people to look at things in a different way – you may not agree with Jakob’s opinions [on things like religion for example] but you simply cannot argue with his results.
Going Mental is in the author’s own words an alternative to all the ‘pat on the back’ type motivational coaching that has become the norm in NLP. Jakob trains MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fighters for a living, and he’s not a bad fighter in his own right. One reviewer of his book comments that when not achieving your goal means a foot in your neck you’d better get your coaching right – and this is how Jakob approaches NLP, with a kind of zero tolerance for failure. It’s this bluntness and lack of nurture that is one source of the ‘haters’. Another is quite simply more rooted in snobbery – that an MMA fighter can write an NLP coaching book has annoyed some of the hierarchy of NLP. One review on Amazon starts “I haven’t read the book, but……” and its this positioning that is way off.
I had the pleasure of meeting up with Jakob in Stockholm (he’s from Norway so a short jump across to Sweden was a good place to meet up) to interview him ahead of the launch. I’ll admit that first impressions go along with the tough man persona – he’s deceptively big coming in at around 2 metres tall and with a fully shaved head he strikes a very intimidating figure. He later explained the lack of hair was due to the ‘no rules’ version of MMA they have in the Nordics where even hair grabbing is allowed.
The minute Jakob engages you in conversation though you see straight away what a highly intelligent and articulate man he is. In addition to being university educated at the Norwegian equivalent of MIT, he also did several years of a doctorate before the opportunities in MMA drew him away. In his book he explains the life changing introduction he had to NLP coaching. Following a terrible defeat his coach, blaming his lack of mental preparation, sent an injured Jakob to an NLP coach and he’s never looked back. He began adding NLP into the coaching of his fighters and found that physically and mentally trained fighters did so much better in the cage. He then started to apply the same techniques in his business coaching – and that’s where it really started to get interesting.
Entrepreneurs and business leaders, to be successful, display many of the characteristics of an MMA fighter, and Jakob has tapped into that. Drive, determination and critically preparedness play a big part in being successful – not just in business, but also in life Jakob argues. Before NLP Jakob admits he wasn’t a particularly nice person to know – post NLP he is more centred, has a long term partner [instead of the playboy he was before playing off his MMA fame] and is enjoying life a lot more. These days his time is split between mostly working with business people to still being involved with MMA.
If you want to comment on his book direct to his face [and are brave enough to do so] then in the spirit of openness that runs throughout his work Jakob has a Going Mental Facebook Page. It does have some of the top MMA fighters in the world as fans though, so make sure your comments are constructive.
Going Mental is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Amazon Kindle, iBooks for the iPad and iPhone and all other good bookstores.
The Most Outrageous and Compelling Book on NLP Ever Written
As a publisher, every ten years or so a book comes along that you read and think “this book is going to be huge”. For us it has happened twice so far – the second one about two months ago when a manuscript arrived from Norway. We unleash “Going Mental – Reaching your Goals in Business and Sports – Full Contact NLP Coaching From a Full Contact Fighter” on an unsuspecting public on the 6th December, and few will be ready for it.
We have many NLP authors including some of the most respected master NLP practitioners in their fields and you could argue that some of the applications of NLP we have published, at the time certainly, were somewhat controversial.
However, nothing had prepared us for the writings of one ex-cage fighting master practitioner Jakob Løvstad. Leading NLP gurus have been frank in their review of Løvstad’s book.
“Jakob is not simply some extraordinarily quick, balanced, strong, aggressive fighter, he has worked out, with a little help from his friends, that his ability to perform in this extreme environment is a function of a lot more than the obvious advanced physical requirements and special set of skills that are a prerequisite in the cage. This makes his lively, sometimes outrageous, narrative of his adventures particularly interesting” – John Grinder, Co-Creator of NLP
So what makes Jakob’s methods so different? Most motivational NLP books focus on building up confidence whereas Jakob’s method is much faster, tougher and takes no prisoners. A leader author and practitioner that has worked with Jakob first hand explains that it is the profession that Jakob is in has created a unique urgency to deliver.
“Despite the fact that I disagree strongly with some of his philosophy, Jakob’s results using NLP patterning to become a high achiever in the toughest sport on earth speaks for itself. When the consequences of your ideas not working properly is a shin to the neck, you are pretty much forced to find out what actually works and what is B.S. This book combines some great case studies, a solid kick in the ass, practical NLP patterning and a functional road map to reach your goals. Best of all, it’s all proven in the cage by a man who has courageously walked the walk” Jørgen Rasmussen, Author of ‘Provocative Hypnosis’.
There are many overlaps and parallels between the worlds of NLP and Hypnosis – with many of our authors combining elements from both and another Hypnosis practitioner explains that the simple – ‘improve or get really hurt’ nature of full contact fighting can transfer nicely over to business and indeed life.
“One of the most concise and practical books on setting goals and managing motivation that I have read. For me, Jakob pulls no punches and kicks-butt in just the right way – people who read this and do the exercises WILL make stuff happen in their lives! So top marks across the board… but perhaps not for the soft and sensitive!” James Tripp, Creator of ‘Hypnosis Without Trance’
Jakob in fact in his introduction to the book goes a step further to forewarn the reader:
“If you suspect that your mental health is too fragile for what this book contains, please do not go through with reading it – it is not for the faint of heart. The language is explicit, the content is outrageous and your change will be extreme if you do what you’re supposed to. Last chance… put the book down if you can’t handle this”.
It’s not marketing spin – the techniques are tough. What is already emerging is that the book is a fantastic tool for coaches working with sportspeople. Whilst few sports are likely to go with quite as an extreme “I make my fighters sweat more when they train, so they bleed less when they fight” that Jakob has as one of his mantras, but the demands on professional sportsmen and women these days are intensive.
A fellow coach explains quite well in his review of the book:
“Jakob Løvstad is a man after my own heart. He’s written a powerful book that unites three of my personal passions; combat sports, self-reliance, and peak mental performance! Enjoy this book, I know I did!” Jake Shannon, Founder of ScientificWrestling.com,
I chose this particular quote as it has the words ‘self-reliance’ which for me is a key theme in Jakob’s book. In the cage, nobody else is going to help you to a)win and b)avoid serious injury. Jakob explains in his book early on that it was a complete lack of knowledge, or even respect for the mental side of training that led him to a disastrous event in his career, a heavy defeat and a visit to an NLP master practitioner to ‘get his head sorted‘.
With a little over a month to go before the book is published the controversy is already building. I can guarantee you won’t like some of what Jakob says, and the more conservative of you won’t like the way he says some of it. But – you can’t argue with results. Jakob’s methods have worked in the toughest sport in the world and as a personal coach he has managed to transfer that over to the world of business.
You are going to have an opinion – good or bad and we’d like to hear it. So we’ve set up a Going Mental Facebook Page for you to vent.
You can also find out more about Jakob at his coaching site All Confidence.
Going Mental
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