New APP - Spendless - Slashing Expenses

I have launched an APP called "Spendless- Slashing Expenses"

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spendless.app

It records you cutting back on expenses and adds them up to reach a goal.

The idea came to me at work when ordering coffee. I could take in my own coffee. This would save £1.10 every cup. If I recorded all these £1.10, how much could I save?

If I did the same with bringing in my own lunch as well. I could save money.

But I wanted  an easy way to track these little saving by cutting expense, towards a bigger goal like buying a new smartphone for £100. Something in my hand and at a click of a button

So the app came to life. You click every time you make a saving and it adds the money save towards your goal.

You can track your goal and it will tell you once completed.

Simple. The App is FREE is give a go and start saving today.

Book Review – 99 Ways to flood your site with traffic

Click link to see book at amazon.co.uk
99 Ways To Flood Your Website With Traffic
Click link to see book at amazon.com
99 Ways To Flood Your Website With Traffic

Click image to view on amazon

Book Review – 99 Ways to flood your site with traffic

The book does as it says and gives you 99 ways to bring traffic to your web site. The book is broken down into two parts. Free ways to bring traffic in and paid ways. I read the free section properly and only scanned through the paid section as have no interesting in paying for traffic to my web site at the moment.

A lot of common sense this in this book, commenting in forums and blogs and including your link or signature as your website. However common sense ideas are good, like make sure you use share buttons on your posts, common sense but I had forgotten to do it. Use of social media sites to bring in traffic such as twitter, facebook and stumbleupon. I am not going to list each idea and rate it as that would be a book by itself. Overall the book written in a friendly conversational tone. It gives good practical examples and ideas. I enjoyed the book.

Rating 4 Stars

Book Review – How to make money with twitter

click on link to see it at amazon.com
How To Make Money With Twitter: A Complete Guide To Twitter Marketing And Monetization (Get More Twitter Followers And Make More Sales Online With Social Media, Sell More, Web Traffic)
click on link to see on amazon.co.uk
How To Make Money With Twitter: A Complete Guide To Twitter Marketing And Monetization (Get More Twitter Followers And Make More Sales Online With Social Media, Sell More, Web Traffic)

The best review for this book would be in 6 months time after you implemented all the ideas and showed the money earnt and time spent against the cost of the book. I will be implementing these ideas to get traffic to my blog.

I enjoyed the book. Simple and easy to read, with no filler, which may explain the shortness of it and therefore could be a good thing in the long run. I read the book quickly and have started to implement the ideas. It starts with the basics on how to set up an account and includes easy ways to automate the account in the future and links and names of web resources that can help. Also explains the best things to tweet including web site that will give you trending content, this is great as I am usually stuck for something to say.

The book had a good pace and tone and free from any obvious spelling or typos issue.

The book didn’t have a table of contents, which I found annoying as I like to flick back and go to specific chapters, instead I had to scroll through the book looking for the key points again which is frustrating.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and looking forward to seeing if it actually works.

Rating 4 STARS

An update to my wealth Management post. Things I have done and incorprated into my life.

I followed up on the informtaion and insights I gain through reading "Rich dad, Poor Dad".
I have tried to gain myself a financial education. So I read about taxes. Most of it didn't apply as I work for a large employer and everything is PAYE. But I do have some shares that I had to pay extra tax on the dividend. Through my studies I discovered I could have a self select ISA in to which I could put my own shares. I always assumed a shares ISA had to be the products offered and I had no choice. Now I have transfered over my shares into this ISA I don't have to pay out the extra dividend. Money saved and books paid for themselves already in one move.

Made sure I got all my work expenses in, logged and tracked. Cashback through the credit card on those purchases.

Cashback credit cards now on both joint and personal accounts. Nectar card being used, even online to boost points up for the Christmas spend. Work wants us to do more home working, excellent less fuel to pay.

Bought some ishares bonds and recieve a some money every month.

Buying shares through the company scheme pre-tax. So theoretically making money on each purchase, but they are in trust for 3 in order to keep the pre-tax benefit. This is along term strategy, but hopefully will be worth it in a 3 years time.

Sell on ebay of old stuff in the house we didn't need anymore and raised £250.

Started lending money through a crowd sourcing website zopa. Put in the £250 made on ebay plus a dd of £20 per month. Loans are 2-5years, so again a long term strategy, but intend to keep adding in extra cash. Money made is re-invested.

Cut back on spend in the house. Got a membership for costco and have been able to buy some stuff in bulk and store in garage in order to save money.

Finally I have written a book. Its advertised at the side of the page. This is very long term project. I tend to keep writing a couple a year and build up list. Its hard work to write and even harder work to market. I have done this through self publishing on amazon. Self publishing and the book market is extremely competitive. However, I do enjoy writing so will carry on with it in the hope I get good enough and build a fan base. If I can do that these books can earn me money in the background, the perfect passive income. If after a few years I have a good enough reputation I may offer editing and proofreading services that I can do in the evenings or weekends.

The list grows of things I am looking into. However, time is the biggest factor at the end of the day. There is only so much of it so need to use it wisely.

Euro zone

I think David Cameron was right not to sign us up to the new euro treaty. The new treaty is there to sort out the euro-crisis due to the debt in the euro countries and the single currency. UK is not part of the single currency and therefore is not part of the problem yet they want us to sign up to the solution which involves giving up more powers to Europe and giving them lots of money.

They wanted 200bn euros from us to help fix a problem that wasn't of our making. Also the new financial transaction tax hits the UK the most as 75% of these types of transactions are done through UK banks.

The Europeans are upset we haven't join! I am guessing they need our money and the tax generated through our banks.

I think to sign us up to the treaty would have been undemocratic as we were never part of the issues or the single currency.

Long term however, do we isolate our selves. Strategy in the Art or War talks a lot about having strategic alliances. The other European countries may cut us out the loop. The may insist on doing their financial transactions through other banks inside the euro zone.

If not part of Europe do we need to find other alliances instead!!!

Only history well tell if this is the right decision. I think it doesn't have to be a NO long term, but it needs to be debated with the UK public before jumping in without any thought. A referendum is needed on the long term relationship with Europe.

learning from work

I posted some months ago about using the same methods and techniques I use in work to be successful to help run my personal life and projects.

 

I created another tab on the spreadsheet next to the work actions for personal stuff and started listing the things I wanted to accomplish.

I also create a value against them and way of showing how they linked together.

 

Very quickly it produced big dividends as I followed up an idea on advertising a holiday rental property. This idea worked and has help me to gain more bookings than before. I don't think I would have done it without the actions list as I would have normally forgotten about the idea and lost the opportunity. I know log every idea and follow it through. Some of the ideas have come to nothing very quickly, but at least I know its not worth pursing. Some ideas are for the future, i.e. things to do in the next few years rather than weeks. Some ideas have just made life easier and more organised. A few have made money, or mostly saved me money. I created a financial plan and strategy, something I would do at work, but not at home. This is getting me organised and gives me hope and confidence in the future. I have found ways of saving money by learning to do my self assessment tax, tracking my financial outgoings and spotted areas to cut back.

 

Not all the actions are money related. One is on weight loss and health related. I have measured my weight daily and logged my exercise and calories intake daily. From this I have found areas I have gone wrong in and found times when I have got it right and now able to replicate it. It has proved me with a wealth of background data that upon analysis has shown what I need to do in order to keep getting fitter and lose weight. This is just a tracker, something I would put together on a team's or individual performance in work put never done it against myself. It is a very powerful tool.

 

I found my biggest improvements and gains from the personal action sheet were from projects I had already spent time on before, but never quite completed. It has given me the focus to finish these off and realise the assets I had already built up, but had yet to release to its full potential. The advertising action I mentioned earlier was one of these types. All the other hard work completed and this action made it finally successful.

 

The other part was tracking where the action lead to. What I found was some actions lead to other action, which lead to other actions. That is no surprise I hear you say, but the actions that came out of other actions weren't often the ones I expected. Sometimes I found something new on the way and created a new action/ project instead or found it combined well with another project and combined them together.

 

Overall working very well. So why do so many people organise their work life, but not their own life?

 

Is NLP a load of rubbish re-visited

I posted this original on the 31st December 2007. It has been by far the most visited page on my blog.
In fact top of the google search for this subject!!!

Nearly 4 years on I thought I would re-read it and see if 4 years of experience had changed my mind.

I still agree with what I first wrote down and have many experiences to back this up.
I work in a large multinational company as manager. I have tried using NLP on my Directors to get them to change their minds on subjects.
This had little effect as they didn't or couldn't change their minds as it would have been seen to be weak or go against their strategy. What I have noticed is the higher up into management you go the more stubborn they become and less effective NLP is on them.

Also discovered that people can become desensitized to NLP. My daughter for example no longer falls for the double bind and presuppotion of "Shoes on first or toilet first before we go out". She replies with "Neither I am not going out".

I have used NLP to good effect in interviews. However, I tried to write a NLP CV and Cover letter and it didn't work as well as it relied too much on NLP and not enough on selling myself properly. I bought a NLP CV and interviews book in the end that helped get the balance right.



NLP in the written work and NLP in speech are different things. A lot of NLP was created around objection handling and therapy, this works well in a conversation as the interaction provides the spark. However in the written word doesn't work so well, best then to concentrate on the positives only using embedded commands, presuppositions, sensory language in order to convey your message.

NLP I think is a helpful guide and useful addition to your communication skil, but it isn't and shouldn't be the only way you communicate.

Wealth management

Saw a program on the tv last night about wealth creation and wealth management. very interesting I think I will definitely be reading "rich dad, poor dad", have know asked for it for Christmas. Basically the premise being you re-invest your money into assets that then generate you additional income. You save in the early years re-investing again and again for the pay back to come later on with passive incoming. The examples they showed were mostly people who have done this through the property market through rentals. Pre -recession this was probably easier, get a mortgage buy a small property rent it out and use the rental to pay off the mortgage. Creating a property that becomes more owned by you as time goes on, plus hope for market value increase as well in order to sell off at some point and re-invest again. Harder in today's market to get buy-to-let mortgages, however rental rates have increased and more people need to rent due to increasing housing market, which is probably inflated due to people investing in property. May still be a way forward if you can afford it to start off with.

I suppose passive income doesn't have to be just property. Shares create dividends, interest on savings accounts, isa &  google adsense. Some effort involved in setting up google ads and something for them to appear like youtube or your own websites. They can generate income after the event. Isa and savings the same less risk, but also less incoming coming back. Shares more risky again, but better return in terms of dividends and possible share price increases. If an author or musician your previous works out on the market may continue to earn you income in the years to come as well. They could be seen as an asset in this sense. Has made me think about my income and what I do with it.

I have have been dabbling in other areas of passive income as well. Zopa a crowd sourcing money lending site. You can lend your money out and get a high rate of interest than savings with a bank etc. There is a risk involved and fees to pay hence why I am testing it out.

Also crowd cube a crowd source dragons den/investment angel web site. You get give funding to start up companies and get shares. Obviously a longer term investment and much risker again, but interesting to read the pitches and a chance to get in at the ground level of a new company. Again I am testing it out with to get an understanding.

Also little things you can do like cash back credit cards is a form of passive income. Reward points another way of earning a very small but passive income for very little effort.

Years ago I worked out if I never went out, no holidays, saved all my money and stayed in the same property, I could slowly amass a large amount of money that I generate interest from in savings accounts or re-invest. Instead I choose to have holidays, bought a motorbike, moved house twice (have made money on these, but it only on paper as won't downgrade) had two children (very costly). I haven't put aside lots of money to re-invest. However I could start now as have some world experience and knowledge and ideas on how this could be done. Building up a fund for Uni education I suppose long term, for my children or preparing for retirement as I don't trust pension funds.(in my mine they are encouraged so greedy bankers can use your money to gamble on the stock market). I am going to write out a financial strategy and stick to it for the next few years to see what I can generate.

More trouble at the RFU

England Attack coach Brian Smith has resigned. Feedback from some of the players was he had no ideas. He asked them for their opinions and wrote them up on a board.

Well a I would have though a good coach would canvas his players and get them involved in the decision making.
get them to take ownership of the way they play.
Get an understanding of what it is like on the front lines in the modern game against these teams.

Some England players said it lack imagination and was lackluster. However, I believe England was the top try scoring nation in the 6 nations over the last two years. Won the 6 nations last year. Not that bad then!!

Feedback is important and should be accepted for what it is and that is a opinion of that person based on their perspective. Its not right or wrong.
It should be accepted and those involved develop from it to communicate better or improve their skills. It could have been an explanation as to why he ask for peoples ideas would have helped those giving the bad feedback.

RFU Leaked report. Who benefits??

You have to wonder who benefits from a leaked report.
The players!! No its bad news for them.
The coaches! no!
The RFU management, yes. The leaked report firmly blames the players and coaches for the lack of success.
The leak really helps Rob Andrew out as many people been asking what he does! Why isn't he to blame.
What did Rob Andrew ever achieve as the Newcastle manager. Not a lot!!

Players will always negotiate about pay. We haven't heard both sides of the story and unlikely to now.
Yes I am sure some players are at fault but this leak doesn't help.
Will the players want to take part in a review again and give honest feedback. NO not if the RFU management use it shift the blame.

The England team and the RFU is suppose to the pinnacle of English rugby. Where as the premiership clubs are professional organisation the RFU is still run by amateurs. This does make sense. RFU management wouldn't last 5 minutes in a premiership club or any big company.

Time for a change within the very structure of the RFU. I would like the premiership clubs to create a new RFU and England team even if meant a few years of being out in the wilderness. It would long term be better for the game as the RFU is a shambles.

Hay fever strategy

At some point in my earlier thirties I developed hay fever. I suffered from itchy eyes, runny nose, sneezing and struggled to breath properly.

I treated this with the normal hay fever antihistamine tablets without much effect. Every year I will struggle from June till early August, classic grass hay fever season. The tablets had some affect but didn't completely take away the symptoms. Each year I tried all the different tablets as it seemed the ones that worked the year before didn't work the next year. However, I realised this wasn't the case. Eventually I would try a new tablet by which time I my body had adapted to the grass pollen, which was usually August time. I also realised the tablets where having an effect as when stopped would be even worse.

What I realised was I had to understand what Hay fever was and why I suddenly became affected.

Hay fever is a allergic reaction to the pollen. Your body believes its under attack from the pollen and tries to repel it. Why after 30 years would I suddenly have an issue, I don't fully understand. I believe it is due to the fact I work in an air conditioned office all day from the age of 23 onwards. About 10 years of working in a sterile environment meant my body was no longer use to the grass pollen. What triggered the hay fever was when next doors lawn got very long and seeded, plus I had only recently moved to a move rural location. I had become sensitive to grass pollen from the lack of contact and this sudden influx created the allergic reaction.

Like most hay fever suffers I have tried everything I could get my hands to try and live a normal life. Eventually I found a solution. First it is import to understand the journey and all the failed attempts.

1) Just tablets including Priton 4 times a day - Worked the first 2 years then stopped working. Made me very sleepily and had to counter act with lots of coffee.

2) Chinese herb medicine - tasted disgusting and I developed a chest infection.

3) Other hay fever tablets - occasionally worked had more effect later on in the season

4) Honey or honey bee tablets - had some effect dependent on the amount taken. about 20% effective reduction in symptoms.

5) Hay band - acupuncture band - surprisingly worked quite well. reduce effects by about 20-30% works really quickly. Only down side is in the Sun with short sleeved t-shirt and band around your elbow. People keep asking whats that?

6) Realised the itchy eyes was down to dryness caused by the hay fever and rubbing of the eyes. Put on moisture over my eyes too soak through during the day as and when felt needed. It seems to soak through the skin and keeps the eyes well moisturised and less itchy. Also seems to create barrier against the pollen. I used Vaseline. Works incredible well. I also rubbed a small amount into the inside of my nose to give the same effect.

7) Hayfever Eye drops - works great at giving moisture put in to the eyes and clearing out the pollen. This acts as a quick hit to itchy eyes where as apply moisturiser is a longer term solution.

8) Nasal spray - works well now my hay fever has lessen. When hay fever really bad this just seemed to irate my nose more.

9) Desensitisation kit - Homoeopathic treatment to get you use to the grass pollen taken over 2 years. This has worked brilliantly and has lessen my reaction to hay fever.  I haven't taken this year and the symptoms have come back again.

10) Vitamin C is a natural antihistamine. Vitamin c tablets help a bit.

11) Plenty of water to stay hydrated

In the end no one thing worked it had to a combination of solutions. Some aimed at prevention and others at reducing the symptoms.

12) Change of diet. Although wet this year and pollen lower than normal I still have bad days, or bad morning. I have discovered this is down to diet. Certain foods inflame your system and certain foods are anti-inflammatory.

Foods and drinks to avoid.
http://theconsciouslife.com/top-10-inflammatory-foods-to-avoid.htm
Alcohol (red wine is especially bad. I have been told to try organic red wine as it doesn't contain sulphates)
Diary

Good foods
http://nutrition.about.com/od/dietsformedicaldisorders/a/antiinflamfood.htm
Turmeric
Flax seeds

Prevention

Desensitisation kit has work well for me.

Honey worked okay.
Desensitisation kit was good as it has grass extract, but I looks like I need to take every year.

Reducing symptoms:
What to do.

 Easiest steps are:-


The change in diet.
 Drink plenty of water.
 Mositurise eye lids and inside nostrils

Then work out what treatments may work
Pills, sprays, eye drops.
Hayband
Desensitisation kit
Pollen tablets
 

If I review this in terms of classic strategy it has all the right points.

1) know your enemy - research and investigate

2) Try to prevent your enemies attacking capabilities. Cut supply lines. limit movement. from allies (Prevention of hay fever)

3) defend against attack. Damage limitation. Treating the symptoms of the attack.

4) The best strategy is always a multi strategy. So many different strategies used to from an over arcing strategy.

It goes to prove that good strategy theory has many applications.

Update on creating actions and following through

An update on my personal actions and creating a value tree.

Seems to be working well so far created a few events of true value through my own actions that have lead to new actions.

An advert I placed has worked and seem to have got a booking. This alone would pay for the advert so any more bookings is a bonus. Just have to work out if I would have got them anyway.

Weight loss/fitness training going well. Have introduced HIIT training (High Intensity Interval Training), lost some weight straight away then seem to put some back on. I have been told by a personal trainer this will be due to the body retaining water and glucagon following such a session and will take a few days for it to even out and drop this excess. Apparently this is your body's way of protecting itself following intense physical activity, incase it has to do it again.

Realised that some of my web sites didn't appear on the Bing or yahoo business directory's following a search on another subject. This was an accidental piece of value added from another action, but nevertheless still a valid point, I have added my web sites to both now and this may increase the chances of visitors and business. This was an easy action free of cost just time and it will hopefully bring money in. As Bing is getting more popular it is essential to make sure this search engine is also covered.

Another one of my actions was to create adapted CVs and covering letters per job I applied to in the future. This seem to be real working as had 3 interviews in the last 4 months in the previous 4 months zero interviews. I realised I would go to great lengths to sell business cases and justification in my job to my superiors, but wouldn't do the same when applying for a new job. I would just send a generic CV and cover letter in the hope they could some how pick out the potential and the good bits. As said previously thisnew adpated CV and cover letter has already lead my to a new job. Plus I had an interview last week for an even better job that was closer to home. The interview went well I did very well on the behaviour and competency questions as you image for someone into NLP. I was a bit rusty on the technical side, but tried to employ as much objection handling as possible. We shall see what happens next.

A few of my actions have lead to immediate dead ends. This isn't an issue in some cases they were just one off actions. In others they were investigation that hit a blank or no result which is good as recorded and I now know I can't create any value from these activites.

I shall carry on to see what happens next. I hope to see actions create actiosn creating value and more actions etc.

Turnaround

Some great news for me today. I recently changed jobs at the end of December and took over two teams.

The teams where failing against their SLA and KPI targets. The latest stats through show both teams now in SLA.

1 team was only 10% off and the other about 25% off target before I took them on.

Managed to turn it around by doing the simple things, getting the basics right.

1) Set a clear remit of the team and the boundaries of interactions with other teams.

2) Defined the processes of team

3) Defined the daily tasks to ensure the work got done.

4) Set reports in motion to find root cause of the issues and trend analysis. This showed us where the issues lied in the team and how to address it. Could measure the success and un wrap the layers of problems one at a time to gain constant improvements.

5) Begin to gain trust by following through on the actions and feedback.

Have turned around the teams in 3 months. I have learnt what I could have done better. Next time it will only take 2 months!!!

My lessons are chase the i.t. quicker as a full month before I had any reports which is the foundations of measuring success and finding failure.

Listen more, people had raised issues that I didn't act upon as quickly as I could have, probably lost a couple of weeks.

Integrate quicker with peer managers.

Met team quicker. Unfortunately with it being late December and the snow this one was out of my control.

Overall happy.

Lots of other improvements still in the pipeline I wonder what the next 3 months will bring.

I am BACK

I am back. I haven't posted for a long time, but have decided recently to start again.

 

What am I up to.

I have always been good at work in keeping alist of actions and ideas and following them up. I have drivena lot of benefit and value be simply following through and actioning these ideas.

 

However, I never do this in my outside work interests. I have decided to start an extra list around these outside work interests. As part of new lists I am tracking the value it creates and what it leads to. I had this idea of a tree type diagram showing how one idea creates another how the pathways of value are created. I am going to call it the "tree of value" or the "path of value". I will keep the blog update with how it works.

 

 

marmite fridge

The other day I was having some toast with marmite. I was on the way
back to put it in the cupboard when my wife happen to say the word
,"Fridge", as part of our conversation.

I walked straight past the cupboard and went to stick it into the
fridge. As I started to open the fridge I realised I was putting it in
the the wrong place.

I realised what my wife had said and the effect it had on me.

I guess it worked as a pattern interrupt as it stopped my train of
thought and put in its place the message fridge which directed my
towards the fridge.

Is this how weird things end up in your fridge and in the wrong places
in your house because through a separate train of thought or a
conversation running at the same time mis directs you to the wrong
place?

Genuine Understanding only comes from Experience

Received a great picture message this morning of my daughter building
a couple of lego towers.
Why is that great you are probably thinking? and what does it have to
do with NLP.

last weekend she wasn't really doing much with the lego, but this
weekend I spent a lot of time with her building lego towers. Mostly me
building and her adding in the odd piece. It seems to have made an
impression as today she is building her own lego towers without any
help. Why NLP? Well made me think of the NLP presupposition.

"Genuine Understanding only comes from Experience or learning is in the act"
You can read all you like, and talk to as many other people as you
like, and you can watch other people doing something on video, DVD or
film - but you don't really understand something until you personally
have done it."

This was definitely the case. The learning came from the experience of
building the towers with me.

more feedback

So Andy Murray learnt from his game against Nadel at Beat him in the
US Open. Definitely a case of taking it as feedback not failure.
Although he lost to Federer in the final he now has experience of a
Grand Slam final.

He said in his interviews that although upset to lose you only get
better my playing better players, losing to Nadal and federer has
shown him the weakness in his own game that he will need to eradicate
if he is to become the best in the world.

His behaviour shows he lives some of the NLP presuppositions

"There is no such thing as failure, only feedback"

"Genuine understand only comes from experience"

Whether this is intentionally or he just has a positive mindset I don't know.

On a personal note at work some of my predications on the state of the
department seem to be coming true. I said that the new structure was
set up for failure, (not feedback ha ha). They under estimated the
work the some of the managers did and by changing our job are starting
to realise that something is now missing. The management level above
now get all the work and hassle we use to deal with and it is clear
they can't cope.

They are trying to pass some of the work back to us again, but they
are getting a strong push back. They changed our jobs they can't have
it both ways. So now they are trying to get some of the team members
to pick it up instead and again are getting strong push back. People
are wise to this style of management now, the have their cake and eat
it approach. They want the work done but won't pay you for it or
recognise you for it. At the end of the day I have contract with the
company I work for, just as they have a contract with their suppliers,
vendors and customers. I do what I do as a business decision, this is
the same terminology they us when making excuses for redundancies or
small pay rises. It seems however they don't like their own excuses
bounced back at them when giving reasons not to work outside your
contract.

Getting back into it

Got back into some NLP yesterday. In a managers meeting always a good
place to spot and use NLP.

For starters my director always sits in these meetings with his head
in his hands. He always seems totally bored by the meetings. Around
there are a number of people try to suck up always giving everything a
positive spin and try to put them selves out or getting others to do
the work for the him.

I had a little discussion with them yesterday and used a few Sleight
of Mouth patterns. Realised I could have used more after the meeting
but to be honest I was only doing it to wind them up a bit and I got
the desired effect very quickly. I think telling one of the managers
"we should be working smarter not harder", was a treat, he sat in
silence for quite a few minutes before coming out with a whole load of
drivel that I couldn't be bothered to counter, as I don't really care
about the job anyway.

I think I need to finish up the book I am on, I have written a goal to
complete by October and the final bit will only take a week to
complete. After that I will re-read the Sleight of Mouth book again
and work out some exercises.

plans for the future

Signed up to a number of NLP rss feeds the other day. Something to
read on a daily basis to keep my interest going. Got through nearly
all podcasts I can find on NLP just waiting for the good ones now to
post new episodes.

Going to try and practice NLP every day at the moment and record the
results, not reading up on anything new at the moment want to
concentrate on what I have already learnt and give my self a break
from reading at the moment. Very nearly finished the NLPbook will only
take a few more few to complete so will be well done before the initial
completion date I set myself and the subsequent revised date as well.

I have a couple of book s that will assist in my practicing of NLP
once I get stuck back in again.

This blog was always suppose to be about strategy, politics and NLP. I
have concentrated on the NLP part and have written a goal to write
100 blog entries on NLP before I moved on. I am on 34 blog entries
since setting the goal, so only a third of the way at the moment.

Ploughing along

Not sure what to blog about today. Been off ill on Thursday to Sunday,
with my outstanding issues at work I have tired to keep myself
detached from the rest of the team. I don't want to get to involved in
case I leave. So not really using my NLP to its fullest at the moment,
just a little bit of mirroring etc in meetings and conversations as
per normal. Still reading through the book and got to an interesting
section on giving and receiving feedback. I wish I had read this
properly before, never mind I will take that as feedback not failure,
ha ha.

Its a skill I need to develop for my future career, but the again the
opportunities aren't really apparent at the moment. I think I will
write up and keep with my other notes so I can use it when necessary.

I think I am getting somewhere with my case at work, I have found more
evidence to support my point of view. Plus in a meeting the other day
when I discussed with my new manager about this role there seemed to
be a softening of his belief in that the job was significantly
different. He had only just met with the person running the
investigation a few hours before so I wonder if this shift was down to
that meeting.

Any how I have heard he has met a number of the people involved so
should hear in the next week or two.

I will use the in between time to practice NLP where I can or observe it in use.