The Ultimate Guide to a Fulfilled Family

Review of Parents' Handbook: NLP and Common Sense Guide for Family Well-Being by Marcia Freespirit, CEO, JimSam Inc. Publishing www.jimsaminc.com.

Roger Ellerton's Parents' Handbook is a tremendous resource for parents. This guide gives superb advice, tips, and techniques that have been proven to work. Improve your relationships with your children, understand what motivates them and reduce the stress and strife in your home.

Ellerton's broad experience and success with his techniques back up his advice. The situations are real, the advice is honest and at times, hard to swallow, but it works. Whether you want to improve communication in your family, or need a lifeline to prevent serious and sad outcomes with your children, this is the book for you.

This book takes time to read. You need to take your time, digest the content and share with your family. If you are intent on improving your relationships, it won't happen overnight, but it CAN happen!

This should be on the bookshelf in every home.

Book Review of "Rethinking Your Work: Getting to the Heart of What Matters" by Val Kinjerski, PhD

Book Review of "Rethinking Your Work: Getting to the Heart of What Matters" by Val Kinjerski, PhD



Review by Roger Ellerton

This book is a must read for managers who want to create a great place to work for their team and for anyone who is looking for more enjoyment and productivity from their work.

The book is clearly focused on the work environment and what you can do to create work of passion and enjoyment for yourself and your team. Occasionally, there are references to other environments such as family and I suggest that all of the ideas, concepts and tools presented are equally applicable in your family life, indeed wherever you are – you are only limited by your imagination.

As I was reading the book, I often wondered if a title such as “Creating Spirit at Work” might not have been more appropriate as this is the focus of the book. But then this may have driven some potential readers away – assuming the book is about religiosity, which it isn’t.

The book is divided in two parts:

Part I: Understanding Spirit at Work.

Here the author presents real-life examples to describe and provide us with insights as to what is spirit at work and illustrate that it can be achieved in different ways. Some of us may have had fleeting experiences of it, others extended experiences and then there are those people for whom it’s just a way of being. For all of us, it’s something we desire even if we cannot fully describe it.

According to the author, spirit at work is present in people who are passionate about and energized by their work and there are four distinct dimensions: mystical experience, engaging work, sense of community and spiritual connection.

Part II: Fostering Spirit at Work.

This is where the book comes alive for me. Here, the author leads us on a journey, providing tools, stories and exercises along the way, for us to discover and create our own spirit at work. As mentioned earlier, these tools are equally useful at home and in other environments.

The author notes that although spirit at work is influenced by the work environment, it’s really created deep within each of us.

Part II begins with a discussion on appreciating yourself – for some of us, recognizing our own talents and contributions is difficult – and respecting and recognizing the presence and contribution of others.

The next three chapters explain and provide exercises for discovering or enhancing spirit at work, specifically, they deal with: positive thinking, living in the moment, optimism, gratitude, forgiveness, courage, service, kindness, happiness and hopefulness.

The book is full of great ideas and exercises, however if you don’t actually do something, then the book is simply a nice read. Thus the author ends with a clear call to action.

As I said earlier, this book is a must read and it clearly stands on its own. However, as an NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) author and trainer, I was struck by how many of the ideas and concepts are similar to or fully in alignment with those from NLP. For those of you who have studied NLP, the material in this book will enrich your understanding and application of NLP concepts. And an understanding of NLP has the potential of making the material in this book even more useful and effective.

Parents Handbook: NLP and Common Sense Guide for Family Well-Being

My latest book, Parents Handbook, was published by Trafford Publishing in February 2010. It is available from Amazon.com, other on-line retailers and bookstores. Thank you to all who provided input on the cover design and content of the book.

Parents Handbook: NLP & Common Sense Guide for Family Well-Being

Thank you to all those who provided input and help in designing the cover for my book - Parents' Handbook. To see a copy of the final design, please visit http://www.parents-handbook.com

Help Choose the Cover for My Next Book, Part 2

Thank you everyone who commented on the previous set of cover designs for my new book "Parents' Handbook: NLP and Common Sense Guide for Family Well-Being". A new set of cover designs is now available and can be found at www.renewal.ca/bookcover.html. I look forward to reading your comments.

Many thanks.

Roger

Help Choose the Cover for My Next Book

The first preliminary designs are now available for my next book: Parent's Handbook: NLP and Common Sense for Family Well-Being. Please download this pdf file (book cover - http://www.renewal.ca/Ellerton_CoverDesigns_09-11-13.pdf) to see all five designs. In the header for the pdf is a button that allows you to see one page (cover) at a time. Designs are by Fiona Raven (www.fionaraven.com). Fiona designed the cover for my first book - Live Your Dreams Let Reality Catch Up: NLP and Common Sense for Coaches, Managers and You.

I would appreciate your thoughts, at this blog or send me an e-mail at roger@renewal.ca.

Let me know which design you like. Are there features in one design that you would like to see incorporated in another design.

You may refer to the five different covers, simply as: Design 1, Design 2, etc.

My book will be available in January - February 2010.

Thank you for your assistance.

Roger

Auditory Digital Representational System

The purpose of this article is to provide additional insight into the auditory digital representational system and to spark your thought processes and potentially a discussion.

NLP Representational Systems

We access information through our senses: see (visual), hear (auditory), feel (kinesthetic), taste (gustatory) and smell (olfactory). To process and store this information, we make pictures in our minds of what we believe we have seen, sounds of what we believe we have heard, etc. In NLP, the different ways that we represent or store information in our mind are called representational systems. There are six in total. Five of which correspond to the senses: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, gustatory and olfactory; plus auditory digital which is devoid of the senses and focuses on discrete words, facts figures and logic.

We use all of the representational systems and often have a preferred system. For example, when learning something new, some of us may prefer to see it or imagine it performed, others like to hear how to do it, others choose to get a feeling for it, and yet others make sense of it. In general, one system is not better than another and your preferred representational system may change over time. People at the top of their profession typically have the ability to use all of the representational systems and to choose those most appropriate for the situation.

For more information on representational systems, please see the article Modalities and Representational Systems .

Auditory Digital Representational System

The auditory digital system is not related to any of our senses. Instead of saying something “looks good”, “sounds right”, “feels nice”, “tastes good” or “has the smell of success”, a person with a preference for auditory digital may say, “this makes sense”, “is logical” or “the specifications are correct”.

People with an auditory digital preference, will tend to:

• Have a need to make sense of the world, to figure things out, to understand.
• Talk to themselves and carry on conversations with you in their mind. Often they will say they remember discussing something with you, when you actually did not have the conversation. They did, however, in their mind!
• Learn by working things out in their mind.
• Not to be spontaneous, as they like to think things through.
• Have logic play a key role in the decision process as do facts and figures.
• Memorize by steps, procedures, sequences.
  

Two Questions for You to Consider

Please consider the following two questions. I would appreciate receiving your thoughts.

• Is the auditory digital representational system a consequence of our modern society?

When man first walked on this planet, he was highly dependent on his senses for food, shelter and to escape danger. To survive for another day, he was intimately connected with nature. He did not have need for facts and figures to keep track of what little he possessed nor logic to prepare a plan or win an argument.

Gradually man accumulated possessions and it became necessary to keep track, manage and develop these possessions through using facts, figures, planning and logic.

Today modern man sends and receives hundreds of e-mails, text and voicemail messages, with the main focus on the content (facts, figures, logic) of the message. Thus he spends less time using his senses to be aware of what is happening around him or to enjoy the beauty of nature or the creations of artisans.

And then there are those among us who have given up modern technology and its trappings or who have established limits on its use and influence, in order to take advantage of local or national parks or to move to the countryside to get back in touch with nature.

• Is auditory digital a default system for safety?

Although I have not done any significant research to verify it, it is my contention that many people who have a preference for auditory digital actually have an unexpressed preference for one or more of the other representational systems. These unexpressed preferences were put aside, buried or discounted during their childhood years due to ridicule, inappropriate behaviour, being chided for their opinions or desires by people in authority or respect.

I have met people who grew up in families where feelings were dismissed, or their dreams or attempts to create objects of beauty were laughed at and ridiculed as a waste of time and money. To avoid or minimize this criticism and ridicule, they retreated into themselves - keeping their thoughts and dreams inside, searching for something that could not easily be criticized, a place where using facts, figures and logic they could figure it out for themselves. People in authority or respect may find fault with a colour choice, how something feels, sounds or tastes or smells; but it is more difficult to find fault with facts and figures built on a logical and reasonable thought process. And if you simply process your thoughts internally and keep your desires to yourself, what is there to defend other than you are not as expressive as others?

As these people who selected auditory digital, as a default safety option, become adults and more aware of who they are and their true potential, there is a desire to decloak and fully express themselves by reaching out and hugging others or through visual art or music or through their own creativity. For some, this is an unfamiliar activity and they are not sure how others will react or indeed how to even go about doing it. So they wait and wait and try to figure it out. NLP is a great vehicle to assist with this self-expression in a safe and respectful manner.

I look forward to seeing your feedback.

Author: Roger Ellerton is a certified NLP trainer, certified management consultant and the founder and managing partner of Renewal Technologies. The above article is based on his book Live Your Dreams Let Reality Catch Up: NLP and Common Sense for Coaches, Managers and You.