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Editor's Note: We thought that because it's the beginning of our summer, we'd put something light and amusing in our newsletter this month. Both Alex and I have written about our move, and we've ended up with a female and a male perspective... as usual :-) And, for a change of pace, Rehana has written an excellent article for anyone interested in presenting information, lectures, workshops to groups "Moving"
From a Male Perspective Now if I was newly married, I would assume this concept was something up for discussion, possibility even a debate. We could explore the idea, mull it over, and discuss the pros and cons of uprooting ourselves from the tranquillity of our existing location. Granted, the whole area is slated for development, but the raccoons, deer and coyotes still abound, and generation after generation of wild rabbits find our lawn an excellent spot for lunch. However, I'm not
newly married, and years of accumulated wisdom warned me instinctively
this was a fait accompli, and testing the waters needed to be done with
caution. |
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She
began the conversation on the back deck just as the Rhodo bush began
blooming. "I've found the perfect house! We'll have two floors, and
each has a fireplace. There's a big, deep back yard for the doggies,
and several large cedars for privacy. The area is nicely settled, so
we won't have to listen to construction noise, like we would if we stayed
here. What do you think?"
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"Does it have a
workshop?" I asked cautiously, feigning neutrality. "They come in kit
form. All kinds of sizes," she fired back in a microsecond. "I've been
researching that for you and you and the guys could probably build it
in a day or two, right after you build a water fountain thingy... you
know... so it flows over the big rocks in the back yard." "We have big
rocks in the back yard?" I inquired lamely, as my mind accepted the
inevitable. A few weeks later, our house was sold, and we moved into
the new house.
"I've called Eric
to cut out the kitchen walls and mount the new light fixtures," she
announced. You just rest, and get yourself ready for the clients." Now,
if you want something done and done right, call Eric, I remember thinking
and began to relax and think about hot showers, or maybe soak in the
tub and ease the strained muscles I no longer thought I owned. "Why don't you trim a little bit of those big cedars, then relax?" Berit inquired sweetly. "It'll give you a chance to play with your chainsaw, and whatever else you need." Re-emerging from the tree trimming expedition, I was greeted with, "You're dripping blood all over the kitchen. Go jump in the bath, and wash it off. Oh, before you do that, my office simply must have some shelves put in, if you have time," and she was off to deal with a hundred other projects needing her attention. After stemming the blood flow with paper towels wrapped around my arms, I dragged out the table saw, the drill and brackets and managed to install the necessary shelves before dark. One moment I was settling into the jetted tub and seemingly the next I awoke to find the water had cooled, so a quick dry off and I crawled into bed. In my dream, the furnace had exploded and parts had gone through the roof. I looked over at Berit, oblivious to the rumble that had just gone through the house and since it was 4:30am, decided I better investigate the source of the racket. Two very upset dogs met me in the living room, and as neither one of them could decide whether to quiver or pee, I told them to join me whilst I searched each room. Ah ha! The furnace was still securely anchored to the floor, so the three of us moved on to Berit's office. There I found my expert carpentry skills must have been left at the old house. The top shelf I'd built had collapsed, taking everything with it. Tiptoeing back up the stairs and into the bedroom, I heard a soft and sleepy voice inquire, "What are you doing?" "Just keep the closet door in your office closed for now," I whispered back. "It'll be fine," and crawled back into bed. "Well, the worst is over," said she over a cup of tea on the elevated back deck. "Im really impressed with how much has been accomplished in such a short time. Eric says the renovations to the kitchen and offices are almost done, and I really am so glad to say, the worst is over. We just need to..." (Sorry, I zoned out after the 20th or 30th item was mentioned from her mental list.) "But, things will be much quieter now and you'll be able to focus on your client's needs in relative peace." she finished with a brave smile. Monday morning... the day booked with clients in my new office, and other than paint touch-ups here and there, a nice, quiet day to look forward to, I mused over coffee and the morning paper. And that's when the saws began, as our neighbour had just decided to replace his very large, but in need of repair sundeck! "Like the new office?" I shouted to the first client of the day. "Isn't moving domiciles and the noise of renovations fun?" Some clients really do need to develop a sense of humour, and a sense of adventure, is all I can say. Meanwhile the fifty odd things on Her list is not going down, as new items keep magically appearing and blending with the first one, but I await the delivery of my new cedar workshop, if for no other reason than getting my tools out of the guest bedroom. Once that's done, we may even put together the guest bed. Might as well put that on the list; I think I'll position it as a project to do just before building the doggie door and repairing the shelves, but after installing the new kitchen faucet and water filter. Might even see a client or two between projects. We'll see, we'll see...
You can contact
Rehana at webstar@ps.gen.nz
The Value of Matching and Pacing Belief systems in Group Training To increase ones effectiveness while delivering training, I find the skill of matching and mirroring the group's collective belief system is very helpful. It will deepen rapport with the group and allow the participants to feel understood at a deep level and therefore more open to new ideas and practicing newly acquired skills. I use a pre-workshop questionnaire, which allows me to gather information about the group. I can make the questionnaire flexible and change it to suit my needs and gather the type of information I feel would help me help my students best. Included in the questionnaire are details such as age, education, affiliations, clubs, hobbies, reading preferences, etc. This gives me a bird's eye view into the audience. I can pick out the shared common beliefs and apply them in the learning experience. It was a joy to watch, as the examples were so meaningful to this group. It resounded well with their deeply held beliefs and ethos in general. I intertwined the biblical stories of the prodigal son, the Good Samaritan and the utmost importance of building our homes on solid foundations! And how EFT would with persistence clears up old and rotten foundations. Other methods I used were direct quotes from the New Testament. Teachings of Jesus were liberally quoted especially around judgement and blame. One of my favourite metaphors is the 'casting pearls before swine' and the 'getting the mote out of one's own eye first'. When I work with let's say, scientific types like nurses, doctors, or engineers, then I use relevant metaphors. For instance when working with engineers, I have used language they would be comfortable with. I talk about building bridges, earthworks, dams, structures, steel density and strength, wind velocity, etc. The more information one can gather about the audience the more chance of successfully building rapport with the group. If the group is
mixed, there is always some common belief you can find and work with.
Sometimes there may be opposing or several beliefs. Use them all. Expand
your training skills and knowledge, and have fun!
Berit's
Corner Now, I know all of you have moved, probably more than once, and it's not fun. In fact I'm sure there are lots of moving horror stories out there. Our move was probably "normal," in that it's exhausting and not how I would choose to spend my time. But, it's done now, and we are in the unpacking phase. Actually, that's not quite true. We've been here two weeks now and hardly anything is unpacked! I'm considered an organized person by my friends and under normal circumstances I'd be 90% unpacked by now. But, it isn't so. When you also move your business at the same time as your home, and need to renovate the space to accommodate your offices, the "move" becomes a little more stressful. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank a few very good friends. These people helped us a tremendous amount, and also helped to keep us sane when all around was chaos! Dr. Mike McCallum has Tuesdays and Thursdays off. He has spent every Tuesday and Thursday for the past month working at our house. He built a beautiful fence to keep our doggies protected and did lots of other projects. His workmanship is excellent, and if he ever decides to quit his day job, he could earn a good living as a carpenter! And, he wouldn't accept payment... he did all this because he wanted to help his friends. Craig Hayes (our neighbour at the old house) is a landscaper. When Craig heard about our planned schedule being WAY behind, he volunteered to come over here and "clean up the garden a bit." He turned an overgrown and totally neglected front and back yard into a clean and tidy, "ready for flowers" garden. He also planted cedar hedging, hauled away junk and did ALL that hard work with a dislocated shoulder! Before we even moved here, we had to pack. I hate packing and kept putting it off. I was under the illusion that somehow it would all get done... maybe I thought a fairy would appear and wave her magic wand. As I said, I was becoming delusional :-) But the universe heard my pleas and a fairy by the name of Andy Manson appeared. She was at our house bright and early on the Saturday before the move and took over. I seemed incapable of making a decision about what to pack and what to keep for the last five days in the house. So Andy just went to work and packed the whole kitchen. After a brief lunch break, she strolled into my office and packed all of it. By 4:30pm she was done! She looked as fresh as a daisy and was eager to get home to shower and change 'cause she was going out that evening. I on the other hand, fell into bed exhausted and took a nice long nap. The night before moving day our "Angel" arrived. Tamara Kelbaugh (she lives in Washington state) arrived at our house bearing gifts and goodies to eat. She knows I love cookies and snacky thingies :-) I know I couldn't have survived the move without her! Tamara took charge, didn't wait to be asked to do anything, she figured out what needed doing and did it. For the next three days she hauled boxes, unpacked boxes, cleaned things and fed us. She was such a joy to have around. Tamara took excellent care of us and we felt pampered and spoiled! As I mentioned I haven't unpacked much yet, including my office stuff. Andy has a warped sense of humour (that's probably why I like her) and when I saw a box marked "Time to do my nails," and opened it to find accounting files in it, I figured it wasn't meant to be... right now. Maybe I should invite Andy over to unpack some of the boxes, like the ones she marked, "Old Stuff," or labelled "Business, but not really!" We are at the point where we don't have to hurry. Clients are really understanding and as long as they can sit when they see Alex, they don't care if the painting isn't done, or there are boxes everywhere. Most are kind, and don't even mention the mess! Besides, we have all summer to get organized and I'm itching to get out into my new garden. But right now, I think I have to have a nap... writing this article was exhausting :-) Have a wonderful
June!
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Contributing
Columnist Rehana Webster (in New Zealand) is an EFT Master and NLP Master
Practitioner, and also conducts seminars/workshops internationally.
For
example I had a group of people whom I trained in EFT Level 1. I had
found out that they belonged to the same Church group. This gave me
the opportunity to embed my language with the appropriate language and
more importantly to use biblical metaphors in the delivery and examples
of the EFT teaching.
We've
moved, and our other house finally sold! Thank you to everyone that
put out good thoughts into the universe... I'm sure they all helped.
A special Thank You to Jodi Burke who told me the "secret" to selling
a house... focus on the amount you will accept... which I did, and the
house sold a few days later!
For
those of you that have spoken to me in the past few weeks and found
me just a tad stressed out, it's because of our renovation horror story.
Again, I'm sure most of you have experienced a renovation, and things
didn't to go according to plan. So, we're pleased to be in our new home,
and not so pleased with our uncompleted offices. The "horror" part of
the renovation process has been dealt with (we let the contractor go
due to time constraints) and we were extremely fortunate to find another
person. Eric Dueckman is not only an excellent craftsman, he agreed
to help us, and has worked weekends to finish the work. There's still
lots of work to do, but Alex and I are totally confident that will all
be done soon, and done well!
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(C) 2005/2006 - Dr. Alexander R. Lees & Associates Inc.