Course Reviews

A Review of the Mind Management System Incorporating Quantum Reading

At last I have found a solution to dealing with the ever-increasing amounts of written information that I have to read for my job and professional development. On a frequent basis, I used to find myself sitting at my desk at the end of a busy day with an in tray that was buckling under the weight of paper and emails that could be measured in hundreds. I felt like the Norfolk Coastline, where the relentless onslaught of the sea erodes the land, sometimes at an alarming rate. If you can associate with this image and this sounds familiar, then the mind management system incorporating quantum reading will make you feel better able to cope.

The course provides you with a range of techniques that equip you with skills to shift those paper mountains and oversized email boxes. During the course you will gain skills and techniques that help you to read and understand significant volumes of written material quickly. These include developing mind mapping skills, creating the right conditions to maximise concentration and thus comprehension; use of accelerated learning techniques; use of serendipity and skip reading techniques; synoptic reading (the ability to deal with 6 x 300 page book in one afternoon!).

Before I went on the course I was frustrated by material that used 10,000 words to explain something when 100 words could have done it. Now I can draw out the salient points whatever the size of the document. I remain unfazed whether it is War and Peace, a long report, or even a technical manual. I have rediscovered the joy of reading. I can now manage the flow of written material like a sea defence against the relentless crashing waves. At the same time I can extract the essence of the sea without feeling overwhelmed, however rough it may get! My only regret is that I hadn't been on the course sooner.

Simon Pamely, Director of Resources, Warwickshire Police

Discover the Business Benefits of NLP

After working at Rolls Royce for four years and enjoying a fair amount of success I took on a very challenging role in the facilities group. Although I was very excited about the new opportunity, there is always a certain amount of apprehension when moving into a new role under a new manager. However, as time went by and I grew into the role I also gained a great deal of respect for my manager. He was an achiever, and always seemed in control even in the most difficult of circumstances. Through our conversations I learned that he was an NLP Practitioner. During our many one-to-one sessions we discussed my own career progression and I learned more about NLP. I became interested in taking an introductory course, which Rolls Royce supported. In that two-day course I learned a great deal about myself and how my thinking impacts on my attitude and success. Dianne is a brilliant instructor and mentor, and presented a number of techniques which have assisted me over the year since I took the course. Since taking the course I have been promoted into a new role with expanded responsibilities. I attribute some of my success to the techniques I learned in the Discover the Benefits of NLP course, and intend to continue my NLP education by taking the NLP Business Practitioner Course this year.

Chris Akins

"To say I was delighted by the benefits brought to me by the 2-day Discover NLP training would be an understatement.

For years I had felt myself being held back in my business by some fundamental obstacles, which although I was able to identify them as problems, I had been entirely unable to overcome them.

NLP changed all that almost literally overnight!

Fuelled by my newly acquired abilities, my business has grown from 2 to 14 staff in just under two years (since my original training course) and we are continuing our rapid expansion in what looks set to continue to be a highly profitable environment.

I am committed to continuing with NLP techniques in developing my personal skills and attributes, along with those of my staff."

Colin Barrett-Treen
MIFP

An Introduction to Leadership through Everyday Conversation

A couple of days after an important meeting have you ever noticed that the other attendee's from the same meeting have drawn different interpretations of what was agreed to resolve the important issues at hand?

Or have you ever had an important discussion with somebody and realised that what you were saying was having a completely different impact to what you had intended? And not a good impact either, "Oops maybe I pressed the wrong buttons there".

Well I have certainly experienced both of the above on many occasions, hence my decision to attend this two day course in Leadership through Everyday Conversation. In the early days of my career as a human resources professional I believed that I was a great communicator and a great listener.

In retrospect my beliefs were based on two things:

A) I can speak fluent English in an English speaking country so therefore my language skills are excellent, plus I always did well at English in school!
B) I have two ears and perfect hearing so therefore I must be a great listener.

So bearing in mind these two factors I believed that I was more than good at the above, I was excellent.

The lessons of experience thought me otherwise about my own beliefs and in time the gap between self-perception and reality was soon bridged. Painfully so….. many of us have been there. If so I hope that you can smile when you think back to your experiences now, I can.

My experience of the Leadership through Everyday Conversation was excellent; I came to the course with two simple objectives:

A) To get feedback from a group of people (that I had never met before) on how my communication and influence style impacted on them through the various activities that we would do.
B) Get exposure to some new communication approaches and techniques to enhance my existing verbal and non-verbal tool kit.

For anyone who has ever had to live or work closely with another person who likes to lead the conversations with you (be they a wife, parent, husband or boss), and assuming that you have already tried unsuccessfully to lead the conversation I would encourage you to learn and practice this technique, that is covered on the course. I am still pleasantly surprised at how this technique works when I match the pace of the words, tone and body language to establish rapport and then really lead the conversation to achieve a good outcome.

The conversations that I had previously anticipated with a sharp exhale of frustrated breath are now welcomed as I now enjoy the challenge of using this technique to achieve a mutually satisfactory outcome with the other person. My view is that if my so-called "difficult customers" now say things after meetings like "that was a very productive meeting" maybe the techniques do work!

The well-formed outcomes technique which is also covered on the course is another simple and excellent tool that has helped me to achieve results in challenging conversations. Recently I applied this technique in a work situation with a group of eight people who were in a very emotive state of mind regarding a challenging situation that they were in. They were really good at describing their sense of frustration and injustice to me.

Over the next twenty minutes the emotional state of the group shifted for the better. Why? Well I put it down to two simple questions introduced over the course of the discussion, namely:

" So what exactly is the problem here?
" So what is it that you as a group of people want to achieve?

They have since gone on to take the essential steps to address their collective issues in a constructive way. In retrospect my understanding of this situation is like this " I had two simple questions but they had the all the answers".

It's a simple matter of asking people the right questions to help them shift to a more constructive path.

So that has been my experience of this course, all I can say give it a try, like me you may end up surprising yourself.

Mark Kelly
HR Manager, AIB

Introductory level

"When I first heard the word NLP I paused inquisitively and listened intently. The discussion was Neuro Linguistic Programming but nothing else. Still none the wiser I decided to find out about it myself and it has been the best thing I have ever done.

I have always been fascinated with people, their behaviour and human interaction. NLP helps you understand those around you and direct positively, influence and motivate the people who you come into contact with on a daily basis. NLP can provide real change and life changing opportunities. We are the 'captains of our destiny' and 'masters of our fate'.

You will only get out of it what you put in and the key ingredient to NLP is honesty. It is sometimes easier to be honest with others but it is even more important to be honest with ourselves. If you are not prepared to influence your own life than how can you really influence others?

Is NLP worth investing in? Absolutely! It will provide you with the tools to deliver all of the above and focus your life in a new way. NLP affords you the opportunity to look at life's problems and recognise that the perceived problems are not always the real issues. I am just starting my third NLP course and am already seeing the benefits."

Ryan Howat
Inspector 6085
West Midlands Police

NLP Practitioner  

"Get ready to change your life. This is, without a doubt, the best and most useful course I've ever been on! My wife went on this NLP course first and I was very impressed with the changes that I saw in her; couple this to the fact that I've always been interested in stuff to do with the mind and how people think, then I just had to come along and try it for myself. I came away feeling that this was what I've been missing all my life! I'd been on courses to do with Assertiveness, Team Leadership, Influencing, etc, as part of my career progression at work. The techniques that were taught on these courses always seemed to nearly work but never quite. NLP filled in all the gaps, suddenly it was obvious why they didn't quite work or rather what they needed to make them work really well!

The NLP course shows you how to understand the different ways in which people think, talk, and do things. It tells you how to get in rapport with people, to understand how an individual is thinking, talking, and reacting. And, should they want to, you can help them change. You get the opportunity to practice all the change techniques on yourself and others, so that you can feel what it's like to change and feel yourself changing for the better. Unlike the courses I mention above, there are no false scenarios to act out. Participants come along with aspects that they want to change, and if you haven't come along with any then you soon find out that there are things you want to change because your potential to develop is immense. Small-seeming changes can give rise to big results. This is one of those courses where the more you put in the more you get out.

Since I've become a practitioner, I've taught my 8 year old son to change his nightmares and reduce his asthma, helped a friend find the confidence to be able to defend herself at an industrial tribunal, and myself to...just do it."
Dave Riches

I found it very difficult to choose where to take my NLP training. I discovered Dianne through a couple of friends who had already been trained by her and had recommended her. That, in a nutshell, was good enough for me.

I really like the idea of small classes - in a big room full of people it almost becomes impersonal. I find I can lose myself, not answer the questions, not get involved and hide in a corner. With Dianne that just doesn't happen, we all got involved and got to play with the new techniques that we had learned. This meant that we were pretty fluent and comfortable with a lot of the techniques quite quickly.

The people on the course with me all came from different walks of life, came for different reasons and we all went away with very different outcomes.

For me, it was a brilliant start to my interest in NLP and I feel very confident that I will be seeing Dianne again on many of her other courses.
Tina Williams
Freelance Trainer

NLP Master Practitioner

'Although I had been using NLP in the contexts of coaching and training for some time I found this Master Practitioner course particularly useful and enjoyable. I discovered a wealth of diversity in exploring other styles and 'maps of the world' which were significantly different from what I had encountered and worked with previously. This added great value to my experience of training and coaching by allowing me to further develop my own style and to work in a way which is now much more congruent with my beliefs, values and 'who I am'.

The modelling project was something that I had not been particularly enthusiastic about beforehand, but the approach and methodology used in the course made this a very interesting and useful piece of work for me, often in unexpected ways. I learned a lot about myself in the process of modelling others. This enabled me to make some changes in how I make important decisions in relation to both work and personal life.

I particularly enjoyed the 'coaching masterclass' format which enabled me to receive immediate feedback on how I was coaching others and helped me to create my own coaching style using a structured process, which was both simple and flexible enough for me to be comfortable working with. This increased my confidence that I would always get a result with a client.

The journey through this training also presented me with some unexpected and major personal challenges, which at times were uncomfortable to deal with. However, working through these challenges with the excellent support of Dianne and Neil gave me an immensely valuable insight into my experience of other situations in my life. This enabled me to discover previously untapped resources which have since proved to be a precious gift. After completing the training I particularly appreciated the diversity brought into it by the different styles and contributions from Dianne and Neil and admired their ability to work together creatively and harmoniously in delivering a successful outcome for all of us individually within the group.

Peter Jefford
Director, Rainbow Learning

What differentiates Brilliant Minds from other NLP training providers?

I would answer this question simply as Structure and Clarity.

Dianne helped me understand the importance of a clear outcome and the structure of what I was dealing with - a belief, a value, a decision, a double bind. Understanding the structure means being able to give the right kind of response, in a whole range of situations, whether business or personal.

When coaching I used to feel that I followed my hunches about specific words and sometimes went down rabbit holes chasing their significance for the client. Dianne helped me enjoy the beauty of the language whilst operating from a firm foundation of the structure of the meaning. The Master Practitioner programme includes Coaching Master classes, which are particularly useful in reinforcing the need for a well-formed outcome and a purpose for the structure of a response. It was also great to watch others in action, and learn from them.

Apart from having fun and enjoying stimulating discussion (chocolate for the brain!) I found the Modelling Project of particular benefit. With Neil's guidance it was a pleasurable challenge to follow the Modelling process and use the well-defined structure to build a strategy I had avoided assiduously for many years. I learned to enjoy disagreeing for the first time ever, (great for being assertive). I also gained some fascinating insights into memory, building rapport, shopping, and coaching, from watching and listening to my colleagues' Modelling Projects.

Neil and Dianne have practical experience, based on sound theoretical knowledge and have read widely around the subject and many others. This is a powerful combination for helping all kinds of learning.

Mandy Geal
Partner LEARNING partners

After practitioner, at which Dianne was the co-trainer, I learned how to change other people, at least that's how I applied what we had covered on the course. Yes, it was life changing too, but in a way I was using the new perspectives that NLP gave me as an excuse to change. Master Practitioner was a completely different experience. I began to see how NLP, and the wonderful embellishments that Dianne and Neil add to the programme, applied to me rather than me working with other people. 3 months after the programme, I am, for the first time, taking control of my life - understanding how I behave the way I do and truly able to make choices, even painfully difficult ones, and have faith that they are right. I also enjoyed the time I spent on the course immensely and have made become great friends with my fellow students. I suspect that Dianne and Neil have a hidden agenda, which is not to teach anyone anything, but to provide a setting within which the opportunity to grow is boundless. Thank you Brilliant Minds.

Terry Haggerty

Back to Top