Thursday 5th June 2008
Nigel’s report
We had a full house for this session and there was a lot of eager anticipation in
the room. It was a truly memorable evening and here are some immediate email responses
:-
“I thought last night’s presentation was one of the best I’ve ever been to!”
Before
the evening started several people expressed their ‘limiting’ beliefs to me about
drawing and they had come along specifically to challenge and change that belief.
Mavis Kerrigan is writing books on spelling and was hopeful of finding a ‘partner’
or two to help her with cartoon illustrations. I asked the group to bear this in
mind at the start of the evening, so by the end all the new burgeoning artistes could
offer Mavis a hand, an arm, even several different faces, for her books. Perhaps
some of the cartoons could be used to ‘frighten’ children into spelling properly!
By
the end of the evening Mavis seemed confident in drawing her own cartoons, but if
anyone wants to help, let me know. Email Nigel
(A wonderful day with a lot of laughter, learning and a really nice lunch. If you’re
bitten by the cartoon bug make a date for this course, next one in September).
My
expectation to produce ‘the goods’ was therefore heightened by what I thought Graham
might be thinking and expecting. I just knew he would be looking for some level of
excellence, or even mild competence (This is known in NLP as ‘mind reading’). In
the end I had to physically walk him to the cartoon I’d drawn as he was so busy setting
up the room!
(I don’t think he spotted the drawings were supposed to be him, too
much hair!)
When we returned eagerly to our tables we set to and re-
For his finale Graham shared a technique from his one day ‘Cartooning for presenters’
course. Using two flip charts to tell a story, make a point, get across a message.
He took ‘personal effectiveness’ as his theme and used the two charts to create a
presentation. Our job to notice the NLP patterns he used to enhance the dance.
There
were lots.
He began by getting himself in the right state by using an anchored introduction, anchored for him.
The two charts were arranged from our left to our right.
This month I felt a bit of pressure (all my own) as not only had Graham been along to the group before, but Jenny and I spent a whole day last year on Graham’s one day Cartooning for Presenters course.
He used the one on our left to draw ‘current’ state. Not as effective as we’d like to be. (If this sounds like you go on Gavin Meikle’s one day course). The flip chart on the right became ‘desired’ state. The bit in the middle and the journey from left to right created a ‘timeline’ effect and helped us find the resources we needed. Graham also got into the ‘state’ for the current unresourceful state, on the principle that you can’t begin to lead people if you haven’t paced them first. He wanted us to fully feel and share the present unresourceful state, so he had to be there first. He stayed there long enough to create a spatial anchor on stage. Only moving when he began to change his state thus ‘chaining states’ to create a seamless move towards ‘desired’ state. If this all sounds a bit sophisticated and professional, it’s because it is! Graham not only draws great cartoons, he also trains presentation skills. He also used hypnotic language, probably some embedded commands that I may have missed, not to mention the hypnotic aspect of his drawing. To ensure we were all with him he also used all predicates: see, hear,feel, etc. And if you were paying attention last month to Peter Freeth you will also have noticed how Graham used Contrast, Direction and Intention.
IThe pictures he drew along with the narrative effectively told a story (metaphor) into which we were all able to add our own content. Graham established group rapport at the start and maintained it throughout by sharing the joint experience and using individuals’ names to keep the whole group involved.
This was just a demonstration of how powerful drawing on your feet is as a presentation technique. But when he stopped to ask us what had we spotted many of were so engaged in the process we would have liked him to continue with the theme and finish the presentation!
I followed this session with a 50 minute chat with Graham on the following Thursday.
If you missed this online call you can still hear this fascinating conversation by
getting a Practice Pack, -
To find out more about
Graham, visit his cartoon site and his NLP, training and business site
Thank you
Graham for an evening of fun, of learning and a great example of applied NLP in action.
You may have noticed I practice my cartoon capers in these reports. I always like
to draw one as a welcome poster for our guest speaker. Doubtless out of kindness
for my feelings they always seem pleased when I offer them my masterpiece to take
home. As it usually involves a caricature of them it may be they want to destroy
the evidence. However I take photos of the posters and then reproduce them to publish
in my reports on the world wide web so this strategy has some flaws!
The room was set up in cabaret style, or for us lot in ‘cafe’ style. This is a seating
plan that works well when drawing of any sort is required. Graham ‘dressed’ the room
with his ready made cartoons. (If you make presentations and would like some poster
sized cartoons to get your message across and ‘dress’ your training space, contact
Graham.) Everyone was so eager to get started they were all sat down before I managed
to play the ‘anchor’ tune. I played it anyway, it always amuses me and sometimes
amuses the speaker.
After my ‘Parish notices’ and NLP commercials Graham began by
teaching us a simple cartoon face strategy. A strategy that allows the drawing of
a hundred different faces. I found in practising I had four different faces when
I was trying to make them all the same! Graham ran through the strategy one more
time and suggested practice would lead to ease of producing the same face many times.
He likened this to writing our signature, which for most people is scribbled without
much thought. We were practicing straight away on our tables, sharing the fun and
laughing at each other’s faces. I had three particularly funny ones on my table,
and none of them were on paper!
Once we had played with this for a while and changed the sex of our little cartoon
person Graham got us to draw a face looking the other way. Up to now all our faces
had been looking left. Time to experiment with them facing right. A straw poll of
which was easier suggested that it makes no difference whether you are right or left
handed, although in his wider experience Graham has found there is a probable link.
The jury is out on that one. One table took experimentation further and even changed
hands and drew with their non dominant hand. Some of the results were better than
with their dominant hand. Probably showing how much our usual ‘beliefs’, ‘patterns’
& habits get in the way of our creativity.
This was a refresh for those who were with
Graham at his last visit in April 2005 and a quick intro for those who were not.
Graham was eager to show us how cartoons can be used, both in presentations, and
in other areas of learning.
He asked us to put down our pens, have a rest, and let
him do all the work, whilst demonstrating a technique for boosting memory he shows
young people. Using a mind map he began to tell us about vitamins. As he described
the different vitamins he illustrated their value, e.g. For good eyes For
strong bones and for strong teeth. We watched enthralled
as the map grew before us. Enjoying the humour
and skill. Then just before we stopped for the midway break Graham told
us there would be a test when we came back. To demonstrate how easy it would be to
reproduce his mind map of vitamins he asked us to point to the space on the wall
where certain items had been. Spatial sorting and memory work well together.
Then Graham unpacked his set up language, “Take a rest”, “let me do the work”, and contrasted this with different instructions “there will be a test later pay attention”. We all noticed the difference this made.
Moving swiftly on Graham asked for a volunteer. Bernie was quickest onto her feet. Using a flip chart Graham and Bernie demonstrated ‘team cartooning’. Bernie started and drew one element of the face. Graham drew the next bit and so on until the masterpiece was done. Our turn next. In pairs we set up our own systems of ‘team cartooning’. The faces from this exercise were very creative. I think I may have detected just a little bit of competition from my fellow cartoonists to see how they could change what I was doing. (That’s certainly what I was up to).
We took the break.
Sorry you missed this? Well great news!! The NLP-