NLP Benefits - Tom O'Connor
The benefits of NLP - Discussion between Michael Beale and Tom O’Connor of Inside Leap, September 2007.
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http://www.ppimk.com/nlp-podcast/tom.mp3
MICHAEL: Tom, firstly I’d like to thank you for taking part in this discussion
TOM: You’re most welcome, Michael.
MICHAEL: And really to kick it off could you give a brief introduction about yourself and what you do.
TOM: I’m Tom O’Connor and I’m the Managing Director of Inside Leap. Inside Leap is an innovative graduate career and professional performance company. So for people in the NLP field what that basically means is taking a lot of NLP and applying it into context of helping graduates secure jobs with leading financial services and other employers. And also, brining the communication and some of the best skills of what NLP’s got into the context of professional performance, to help people improve how they perform in companies and also rapidly develop the sort of skills to be able to perform and get to the next level of their career.
MICHAEL: That’s excellent. Because it leads me into the next question: What experience do you have of NLP yourself?
TOM: I’m a trainer of NLP from the Society of NLP and I’ve been studying and learning NLP and practicing NLP for ten years now. And during that time I’ve done a number of trainings. Most of the time the types of training I do are more NLP specific applications, anything from the point of view of professional context, dealing with motivation to talking about talent from a training point of view, teaching graduates and all post-graduate people how to anchor and fundamental NLP skills that they can use in their professional work environment.
MICHAEL: And how has NLP helped you?
TOM: Dramatically. NLP, personally for me has been a fantastic set of skills I initially came across from Anthony Robbins. I was reading a book that Tony Robbins put together and I suppose doing NLP for many years before that.
One of the keys things that NLP did was be able to give a lot of terminology and also some fantastic and brilliant tools and techniques. Along with the attitude NLP has had a massive impact on my own life personally and enabled me to make some quite dramatic shifts for myself. NLP has also enabled me help my family.
My mother, for example, suffered excessive brain damage and spent four months in hospital two years ago and my NLP skills and learning dramatically assisted in context of having her being able to differentiate between what was real and not real.
Being able to manage in the context of my own family, and as you know yourself Michael, when you’re dealing with something as emotive as that, when you’re about to meet somebody you love in a very traumatic situation, having the skills to be able to constantly influence, buffer and manoeuvre people’s consciousness in a positive way can have dramatic benefits. So for me personally, in that context it was extremely good.
MICHAEL: That leads onto the next question. If you were to look onto your own career in three ways which of these would you say NLP has helped more: building on your existing career, enabling you to different or wider things within your current carrer, or actually enabling you to do something totally different.
TOM: It’s probably a mix between the second and last one. I initially started working in a strict technology environment having nothing really to do with people in the sense of people in a therapeutic change or also a professional training context. Where I am now is in a dramatically different space. It’s been a kind of evolution as to somewhere I wanted to head. It would definitely be a mix between the last two.
MICHAEL: Now, I don’t want to make NLP the complete meaning of life, death and the universe. So let me ask you: to be as successful as you are now, what other things in addition to NLP have helped you?
TOM: One is perseverance, another is learning, firstly and foremost you’re a human being. Basically, what I mean, is that you put in your own package and your own problems and also strengths and talents.
So for me and my team, it’s allowed me to amplify some of the core strengths I already have, being able to create a ferocious appetite for learning, which I’ve always had has been very important. I’ve also very strong people and personal skills, which I had long before I came into NLP.
The other things which are really important are a definite sense of curiosity and a constant willingness to push boundaries. It’s also about being willing to look beyond what you’re doing and being open to the fact that you’re probably wrong about your own thinking and understanding.
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Tom O'Connor Interview
Tom O'Connor Interview
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