Michael : Good morning Nadia. Firstly I would like to thank you for taking part in this podcast and maybe you could kick it off by introducing yourself and telling our listeners just a little bit about you.
Nadia : I’d be happy to. Good morning – although it’s not morning for you, is it? It’s morning for me at the moment.
My name is Nadia Harper and my company name is Nisada coaching and I am a professional hat-wearer I should say – I wear many types of hats, as I’ve mentioned earlier – but I’m a trainer of NLP, professional development and also hypnosis – and I do a bit of coaching too.
Michael : OK, excellent. Now we’re going to be talking about personal development – so let me start with – why do you think it is that personal development is so important?
Nadia : Good question Michael. I think that personal development is so important because it’s overlooked in so many different areas. I do a lot of work in professional development and I find that while people spend so much time getting all of their information together about sales, marketing and so on, a lot of the time their own personal development is overlooked – So I spend a lot of time getting them back to themselves and going over what it is that they’re doing.
Michael : And how do you think – and I appreciate that these are lots of generalisations – in very basic terms how to people help themselves from doing personal development type stuff?
Nadia : I think in my experience people have a lot more get-up-an-go, a lot more experience that takes them over the tough times, in their professional life, relationships and every aspect of their living situations where they understand themselves fully and they’re doing what they really want to do. They’re more accepting with themselves and a lot kinder with themselves. It seems like a much better ‘clue’ than being disconnected.
Michael : And if you’re working on personal development with people – may be a curious question – where do you do it? Does the location matter? Does the time matter? Does it matter if it’s face-to-face or on the phone or on the net? A little bit about where and when.
Nadia : Sure. As far as me myself personally – in my own personal development it’s very important for me to be able to work wherever I felt like at the time. So I’m quite flexible as to where and when I work. I don’t really have any hard and fast rules. I’ve worked all over the world, and I live in Las Vegas – some of the work I do over the phone, some of the work I do in a training setting at their location or my location. Some of the work I do in their office or my office – so I’m quite flexible.
At long as it’s win-win and as long as we keep personal development areas in it it works for me.
Michael : Very top level question – what are some of the behaviours that you expect people to do – maybe expect is the wrong word – what are some of the behaviours that you encourage people to do that will help them with their personal development? What sort of stuff do you expect the people being developed to do?
Nadia : Primarily to to something which is congruent with them, to connect with their inner-self. Perhaps they haven’t done for some time – to understand what their truest intention is and to be able to connect with that. There’s a lot of centring that goes on, a lot of introspective looking that goes on with my typical training applications.
Michael : So you’ve talked about people looking at their inner selves, and that kind of thing – is there anything else that springs to mind in regards to what you’re about?
Nadia : Well I think that’s the beginning definitely. If I was to say what stands out the most, for me the journey has been helping people to get back to their authenticness, their authentic selves. Of course once you find that information out there are several processes to go through to make that reality. But I would say for now that for purpose of answering this question in this context it’s just about getting back to what is authentically true for the person that I’m working with.
Michael : And actually you’ve led very nicely to the next question there. You’ve mentioned a good number of some of the processes – could you name one or two of your favourite ones and just talk your way through what happens in the process, what happens in the beginning, in the middle and in the end?
Nadia :Sure. It was a bit blurry – I just want to check – are you asking me about a personal process that I do myself, or a process that I would do with a client?
Michael : I think a process – either sounds interesting – but given a choice I would go for the one that you would do with a client.
Nadia : Well sometimes I find that people haven’t checked in with themselves in such a long time that they really don’t know how to get back in touch with themselves, so to speak. So one of the first things that I get them to do is to get a pen and a piece of paper and to just write and write about what it is that they want and what it is that they don’t want. And what I find is that when people get that down on paper it’s a massive relief and people no longer have to loop it around and around in their own head – if it’s down on paper, it’s safely there – There’s no reason to think about that anymore.
And the second thing is to think about mind mapping. And I love mind mapping because you can just go mad with it. So if we get a piece of paper and just mind map, and then take the first thing on the list – it could be ‘I really don’t want to be poor anymore’, So let’s just put that in the middle of the paper and start drawing legs from that on why we don’t want to be poor anymore. So then we can get all of the don’t-wants out of the way.
Now, once we’ve got the don’t-wants out of the way we can focus now – because the process of mind mapping lets us get really focused on what it is that we do want. So in that process we’ve discovered a little bit more about ourselves so we can put on the list what we do want and go through the whole paper with each different thing. After that we can prioritize – What do we want first?
Then of course we can go through the various NLP techniques for goal setting making sure that congruent in ourselves, whether it’s in our ecology, if it’s something that we can test – and so on and so forth.
Michael : I have to ask, just out of mischievousness – When you write out what people don’t want at the beginning – What do you do with that piece of paper?
Nadia : Well I think that when we’ve put it out there we should get rid out it. We’ve got it out of their heads, and if people are congruent with it – and I think that when people find ‘My God, it’s that simple to get to what I want!’ it’s no longer useful. The pages of don’t-wants are no longer useful. So I ask people if they want to destroy the paper and they say ‘yeah I don’t need it anymore.’
So whatever’s best for them.
Michael : Brilliant. A more NLPish type of question – What states do you find it useful to be able to access during the session?
Nadia : Before I do anything, Michael, it’s very important to me that I’m congruent with it. As many NLP I live very much in my own head. So I spend time going over things, looking at them from several points of view. So for me the most important thing is that I’m congruent – and how does it feel? Does it feel good to me?
So I run my own little tests as to how it’s going to play out – and the state that’s going to be most useful for the context is going to be the best thing for me, but overall it’s whether I’m congruent with it and does it feel good?
Michael : What do you believe about yourself as you’re doing this?
Nadia :Pretty much the same any time. Whatever I’m doing. Being authentic is important to me. So I believe that I’m helping. I believe that I have the knowledge and information that is going to help resolve the issues that people present at the time.
Michael : I appreciate that all of these are generalisations – but do you have any believes about the people that you’re working with?
Nadia : Well I think in order for me to work with somebody that person have to be past the threshold of change. That’s the most important things to me. Is there anything else? Not really, no. We just have to have a good feeling, and if there’s anything that comes up during pre-screening we’ll have to work with that,
I’m pretty open-minded. I don’t really have any hard and fast rules about anything really – it either feels good or it doesn’t, that’s my rule.
Michael : OK. Another curious question about you in this – but who are you when you do this? Do you have a mission or a goal. Who is Nadia when you’re working?
Nadia :I would say that I’m focused, very goal-oriented, and very tuned in to the person that I’m working with. I’m the same person, I’m just more focused. I guess I’m focused-Nadia. And I really want to get down and find the issue that we’re looking for. My mission I would say is a life without limitations, that’s always my mission, whether I’m working with a client or living my own life.
Michael : Now there are lots of routes or paths to personal development. If somebody came to you saying that they had heard that there were some people that had taken a path or route, and had found some benefit – but they weren’t quite sure where to start what advice would you give them?
Nadia : So if they wanted to do something but they weren’t quite sure where to begin? I think that actually I would have them get back to themselves and have them connect to what they’re true passions are and what they really want. So again, I’d probably start by having a little meditation together and having them go inside – through a bit of meditation or hypnosis – and direct them to what is there truest desire and what their intention is in this particular direction, what it is that they hope to achieve form it – What do they expect to be their outcome? And how will they know?
Just to tap into that feeling, or a feeling that they’ve experienced in the past even, that makes them feel great.
Michael : OK. So we’ve talked about personal development and you’ve given some of your views. As we come towards the end is there anything that you would like to emphasis because you thinking that it’s particularly important and/or is there anything new that you would like to introduce because it’s important to you and is important to people, and is important to personal development?
Nadia : Yes. I think that personal development is very simple stuff. I don’t think there’s that much that is new in personal development. I think that whats important to remember in personal development is that a lot of the time we understand very complicated technologies and we go out further and further and further until we miss the forest for the trees. I think that one of the most important things about personal development that I’ve discovered is about action and persistence. So it could be simple things – small steps – just to get the person to the state that is most useful for them at the time.
A lot of the time people know what the techniques are, it’s just that they’re not connected to the ideas themselves. So again, it’s just about getting people connected and using a lot of physiology, and lot of neurology – just to get people to connect to those ideas and to get them work for their own lives.
Michael : Excellent. I like that. OK. You’ve been good enough to talk to us for fifteen minutes about what you do – is there anything that you would like to plug or anything that you’re doing that our listeners might want to find out more about?
Nadia : Sure. I’m doing a lot of different things. I’m writing a book at the moment, I’m on chapter four of it – it’s actually a book on personal development. And I don’t yet have a title for this particular book, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find out more about the book by going through my website – and my website is nisadacoaching.com
So there’s the book coming out. There’s also my e-book, which I’ve already written which is a chapter of book that I donated to a hypnotist that I know. So that book is called ‘The missing piece of the puzzle’ and that’s going to be available on my website too, probably in the next month or so.
I also have a website called thenlpinterviews.com which is about interviews that I’ve done with other people that are in the field of NLP.
I have another website called socialmafianow.com which is about marketing for your personal development, coaching, speakers and how you get clients and so on.
So I’ve got an awful lot of things that I’m working on, and it would take forever to go through them. But just go onto my website nisadacoaching.com and you can find out what I’m up to.
Michael : Great. And I think that you’ve almost given us your contact details, but just to be absolutely clear, if somebody wanted to follow up what you said – where’s the best place to do it?
Nadia :The best place to go is my website which is Nisada Coaching – HOME and I am very active on social media, you can also find me on Twitter and you’re very welcome to follow me there – you just put in Nadia Harper.
So if you want to connect with me on some way on a personal level, the best way would be to either follow me on Twitter at NADIAHARPER.COM or on Facebook under Nadia Harper, as well as my website
Michael : Excellent. Thank you very much for spending your time with us.
Nadia : Michael, it’s been my pleasure, thank you very much.
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