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Thinking Can Be Dangerous

At the May meeting of the Burton Business Club, the new chairperson Lorraine Holden flew solo for the first time in running the meeting at the Newton Park Hotel at Newton Solney.  Burton Business Club has always strived to provide interesting presenters at the meetings who can also be relevant to local businesses and above all fun.  This month was no exception with one of the club members, Dave Lees of Integritus putting members through their paces as an experienced business coach and licensed master practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP for short) 

Lorraine stated the evening by saying that there are an impressive number of skills to be found within the membership and that evening, we were particularly fortunate.   She discovered Dave’s impressive qualifications on his website which were a post-graduate certificate in learning & teaching, certified to British Psychological Society in occupational testing, licensed master practitioner & hypnotic practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming and a member of the Association of Coaching.  Also, married with 2 daughters and in his free time (what little he has in his busy life), he plays the trombone with a Nottingham Orchestra & a member of a local big band!

Dave started by giving members a potted history of himself and he revealed that he suffered for many years with depression and other challenges – something he rarely tells people. However, he was put in touch with a business coach who used NLP on him and this totally changed his negative – ‘glass half empty’ – look on life. He made Dave open up and talk about things he thought he’d never tell anyone. This turned Dave into an evangelist for NLP coaching so that he could do for others what this coach had done for him. Totally changed his life!   Dave determined to help others as he had been to escape from “that dark place”.  As a result, he undertook some very intense training including four NLP courses in 12 years each lasting around 7 to 9 days.

Dave went on to explain what NLP is – it is all to do with the way people think and the language they use.  He did a little test to see how the group fell into the 3 ‘types’.  He talked about – Visual, Auditory or Kinesthetic (Physical, Tactile). This was a fun exercise and members fell into two roughly equal camps - Visual & Kinesthetic. Obviously this technique can be used in business to ‘connect’ with people in the way they best respond – body language.  Dave illustrated this to members with an explanation of Eye Accessing Cues (EAC) and how our eyes move in different ways when answering certain questions & searching for information in out brains! He showed a diagram to follow and suggested that this was a fun thing to try out later in the pub!  For the person adept in NLP, lying to them is not an option as the eyes give it away

At the end Lorraine thanked Dave in the usual way and she quipped that she now has found out officially that she is a ‘physical’ person!!  She also thanked fellow Club member Tom Keaveney, the General Manager of the Hotel venue for an excellent meal.