Take an esoteric and demanding Japanese martial art with ancient origins and marry it up with NLP, a modern scheme for modeling excellence valued in business, therapeutic and educational circles, and then argued convincingly that they are the same thing and came from the same source.
Reading it may help progress along the Aikido pathway, or elucidate NLP, or both.
It’s very much a win win perspective. If you like, enjoy, identify with what is said, it cannot help but take you forward. If you find the argument does not ring true or accord with your own experience, that process will inevitably bend your mind and senses and equally take you forward.
It needs to be read, re-read and above all practiced (a keynote of the book).
Words and ideas without the grounding of practice are at best hollow?
The process of being excellent has a structure and certain principles, which when we utilise them in whatever we are doing, enable us to succeed.
It is not about the content of what we are doing but the process of how we do things.
Acquiring and utilizing both physical and mental skills in a particular way through deliberate practice and with a growth mindset enables you to step up a level in your learning and spontaneously generate new behaviours.
Most conflict you will ever have is going to be within yourself and this book shows you how to learn to deal with yourself, to be mindful of your thinking process in an ongoing manner, monitoring what you are feeling and what happened for you to feel like that and be able to learn to choose how you want to feel, in other words how to manage your emotions so that they work for you.
I trained in Advertising, Editorial & Fashion Photography at Medway College of Design and worked in studios and for magazines in London. Moved into the music business doing PR Photography and managed a 24 track recording studio and production company that included managing a Punk Band called The Depressions. Various occupations followed including the finance industry dealing Unit Trusts, an Oil & Gas Consultancy setting up and managing their recruitment IT systems and then discovered NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and decided to become a Coach. Worked on Practitioner and Master Practitioner Programmes for 20 years and set up as a Coach, Trainer & Hypnotherapist, see: www.paddybergin.co.uk. I also have a Stock Photo Library on the Internet, see: www.paddyberginphotos.com. I have studied Aikido, a Japanese Martial Art, for over 30 years and have reached the rank of 5th Dan. I continue to study and teach at The London Aikido Club, see www.thelondonaikidoclub.co.uk I have two grown sons and in my spare time enjoy fly fishing for trout.
Andy Hathaway is a long standing and highly experienced teacher of Aikido. He holds the rank of 6th Dan from the World Aikido Federation. He is also a qualified instructor for The Salmon & Trout Association, (S&TC UK) and runs Fly Casting Lessons and Courses.
Runs The Life Talent Programme which is supported and administered by PPD Consulting Ltd, the Executive Coaching Organisation founded by Julian Russell. The Life Talent Programme is aimed at self-funding individuals interested in their own personal development. The executive coaching business of PPD Consulting Ltd focuses on developing leaders who are sponsored by their Organisation. See www.ppdconsulting.com
