Nick Kemp Blog

Prior to learning about NLP, I ran a number of very successful private business concerns and inevitably on occasion members of staff would fall down ill. Sometimes staff would struggle in full of cold proclaiming “I’m feeling really rough, but I’ll struggle on” (cue for sneeze and cough). They would in all instances be asked to go home and to take their germs with them! In an office of around a dozen staff it’s very easy for one person to spread a cold and of course spread of disease has been very much in the news in recent times.

When I helped run some large NLP trainings between 2000 and 2003 there were often up to 600 attendees in a very large room with air conditioning. Often attendees have travelled from far and wide. There were many instances of people adopting the “I’ll struggle through” philosophy  among some attendees keen to see a celebrity trainer sometimes believing that a few days training would make them the next Derren Brown!

I noticed that many who regularly assisted on these large events were often ill and one individual I ran some events with in the past was so full of cold on so many occasions that delegates would actually bring cough sweets at the start of each event in anticipation of impending coughs and sneezing. I stopped recording events as it seemed somewhat incongruent to talk about sensory acuity and the effects of voice when a trainer sounds like they should be laid up in bed with some lemsip.

My wife is a GP and regularly comments at how basic hygiene commonsense prevents illness. Another reason for keeping trainings to small group sizes is to ensure that the duty of care to individuals extends to health and to ensure that any training venue has good restaurants close by. It’s also important to drink plenty during the event whether you are a trainer or attendee and to ensure that the room is properly ventilated and that there are suitable breaks throughout the trainings. Finally f you choose to run an event in a location where people only have one choice of food such as on a resort, it’s probably unwise to then publicly post comments similar to these if you want anyone in future times to attend your events.

“Trainer X was sick and so was X and this morning the main trainer had it... there was something weird in the food or in the air.”

Is this what is called “an anchor” in NLP?