Episode 1 - Living your Purpose with NLP Trainer Kevin Cole of Empowerment Quest International
Transcript
Transcript
Living your Purpose with NLP Trainer Kevin Cole of Empowerment Quest International
Transcript:
[Music]
Female: This program is brought to you by personallifemedia.com
[Music in background]
Jason McClain: Welcome to coaching a life coach, business strategies to grow your transformational practice. I am you host Jason McClain, and today we are talking about emotional mastery and purpose.
Kevin Cole: It is almost like an invisible force that is actually pulling you and assisting you in some pretty incredible ways.
[Music in background fades out]
Jason McClain: Our guest is Kevin Cole with “Empowerment Quest International”. Welcome Kevin.
Kevin Cole: It is a pleasure to be here Jason.
Jason McClain: Kevin is known for compassion, creativity, and unwavering commitment to achieving results with his clients. I am pleased to have you with us today Kevin. I think our listeners are really going to benefit from listening to this Podcast about emotional mastery and about purpose. Today we will be getting into emotional mastery first, and then we will actually get into the subject of neuro linguistic programming or NLP and then last, we will get into purpose.
For each of these subjects we will talk about what they are, why they are important, how specifically you can achieve them, do them, or incorporate them into you life, and what they will make possible if you do. So Kevin first I want to talk to you about emotional mastery. So Kevin, what is emotional mastery?
Kevin, Well Jason, emotional mastery is simply being able to guide your own thoughts and emotions at your own will as opposed to being at the mercy or control of them. What I mean by that is when we are in control of our own emotions or learn to guide them so to speak, we are no longer at the mercy of having a bad day, whether it be an argument with your boss, spouse, or even a death in the family.
Jason McClain: Got you. Why is it so beneficial? Obviously, if you can move through something, even like a death in the family or a bad day rapidly, that is obviously beneficial, but can we go a little bit more detail into why emotional mastery is important?
Kevin Cole: Absolutely, absolutely. Why is, let me expand on it by saying that emotional mastery is absolutely essential to a persons success at anything they strive for in life. Without being able to control your own emotions again, we are at the mercy of our own surroundings and what happens to us.
By this I mean that in order for us to feel good without attaining emotional mastery, we have to wait for something good to happen to us. If something bad happens to happen to us then again, we are at the mercy of whatever that may be. So, we have no control over our lives without it.
Jason McClain: Got you. So it sounds like with emotional mastery you just have more choice and a lot more assurance of your own success in life, relationships, and things of that nature.
Kevin Cole: Absolutely, absolutely. If I may give you a very personal story to me just so that the people out there are not saying “Well, it is just not that easy.” Thirteen years ago I attempted to end my own life on two separate occasions. So obviously, I did not at the time have a clue that we had any control over the way that we felt with our own emotions.
To give you an idea of the kind of things that I had been through, obviously I did not have the greatest life before that time, but among many of my other challenges; for one I was raised by a mother who suffered from very severe schizophrenia. She happened to pass away when I was at the age of 12. So I personally did not even… I had no idea that we had any control over the way that we felt, and obviously with something like that going on of course there are going to be some negative emotions.
So among many of the things that I learned later on, which we will be getting into in just a moment including NLP, I learned that we do have control over the way that we feel and that sometimes it can be as simple as just changing our own physiology.
Jason McClain: Great, well you know my next question of course is, so we know what it is, why it is important, so how specifically can you achieve emotional choice and emotional mastery?
Kevin Cole: Well, there are many ways. First of all, there is no silver bullet but you can achieve emotional mastery the same what that you achieve any form of mastery and that is through practice. It is not something that you just learn some skills and do them once or twice and…
Jason McClain: You can not buy it over the internet?
[Laughter]
Jason McClain: Ohhh…
Kevin Cole: Unfortunately not able to help. It will help but…
[Laughter]
Kevin Cole: Unfortunately, you can read a great book, you can have a great coach even but if you do not practice what you learn from these books and these coaches or this seminar whatever, if you do not continually practice then it will fade. Bottom line.
Jason McClain: One of the things I like to say to my own clients is, there is a difference and a gap always between insight and integration or knowledge and behavior. Really the game of personal development is about closing that gap, shrinking that gap. If you took just one good idea, one good principal and rigorously applied it to you life you would get even further than a person who has been exposed to a bunch of incredible ideas and never integrated them into their lives behaviorally at all.
Of course we do not have to stop at just one; we can rigorously apply many ideas to our life’s plan.
Kevin Cole: Absolutely. You are absolutely correct. I do not actually happen to be a martial artist but I know that certain forms of martial arts are just three or four different techniques that are practices vigorously and continuously. You never stop. Those people do go on to be masters of those particular martial arts. So I could not agree with you more there.
Jason McClain: Great. So give us some specific practices that you assign to your clients.
Kevin Cole: Well there is many that I assign. Again, there is no silver bullet. The key is that I educate people on how to catch themselves in the act of the opposite of emotional mastery. Meaning that if they might be obsessing over an argument that they had earlier, stuck in traffic, or even imagining the worst to come for a conversation that they are going to be having later that day.
Jason McClain: So first you teach them awareness?
Kevin Cole: I teach them awareness, yes.
Jason McClain: Great.
Kevin Cole: And just how to catch themselves in the act. Then what I teach them is I teach them that all emotions good and bad serve a purpose. So, although I teach them skills on how to change the way they feel, I always teach them to pause for a moment.
Jason McClain: Yeah.
Kevin; Sometimes even just write it down and to ask “What is the message here?” “What is lesson?”
Jason McClain: Mmmm. That is before they try and change it perhaps.
Kevin Cole: Exactly. Because I would speak from personal experience on this, when I was first learning some of these skills, a lot of what I learned was just change your physiology. You know, move, jump up and down even.
Jason McClain: Sure, sure.
Kevin Cole: It will make you change your state.
Jason McClain: For some period of time at least.
Kevin Cole: Exactly, exactly. But there is a message to be heard..
Jason McClain: Mmm.
Kevin Cole: It is almost like that FedEx guy coming to your door, he is not going to go away until you pick up that package and get the message.
[Laughter]
Jason McClain: That is great.
Kevin Cole: I mean, he may go away temporarily.
Jason McClain: Yeah, but there will be that little note on your door. That little stickeis saying there is a package for you to come pick up.
[Laughter]
Kevin Cole: Exactly. And he will be back, he will be back. You may be like ok I did not feel like answering the door right then I just kind of wanted to avoid it and feel something different. Maybe just drink a Coca Cola and feel better at the moment, whatever it may be. Bottom line is, that knock on the door is going to come again, and again, and again until you learn to listen to it.
Jason McClain: Right.
Kevin Cole: So what I teach is I teach to pay attention to what that message is. Heed the message, and then change your state. Sometimes just getting the message alone makes you feel spectacular as it is and there is really nothing you need to do. Other times you still need to just practice the opposite. Meaning, if you were stuck in a particular negative state, you know just practice smiling more and catch yourself in the act continuously.
Jason McClain: Fantastic. Kevin, what is it that emotional mastery, if people were to achieve that earliest emotional choice, which is certainly the first step, what would that make possible in their lives? What does that open up for them or allow for?
Kevin Cole: Well, it opens up pretty much all doors. One of them again, we will be getting to a little bit later, is that it opens up understanding more what your true purpose is. Because, most likely if you have not achieved emotional mastery your main focus has been towards negative experiences on a continual basis.
So, what it does is it opens up so much to you including being able to find a new career, being able to figure out what you really love, and what you are truly passionate about in life. Essentially it just allows you to live life to the fullest as opposed to being at the mercy of your own thoughts and emotions.
Jason McClain: Great. When people achieve emotional mastery what can they expect even further than what it allows for? What can they expect in terms of results in their life?
Kevin Cole: Well, so much. When I say that I mean they can expect to have better relationships, better health, they can expect to have things come into their life that they never would have expected to come into their life. Bottom line is people generally… Well, let me rephrase that. People that you want to be around generally do not like being around people that are in negative states all of the time.
[Laughter]
Jason McClain: That is right, that is right. People prefer to be inspired I think.
Kevin Cole: Absolutely.
Jason McClain: Rather than either be in constant support or be drug down by certain people.
Kevin Cole: Exactly, exactly. And those who like to be around negative people generally are very negative themselves.
[Music starts fading in]
Jason McClain: Yes. Commiserate.
[Laughter]
Kevin Cole: Exactly.
Jason McClain: We are colleagues in misery right?
Kevin Cole: Yes, exactly.
Jason McClain: I have always though that word was hysterical and accurate.
Kevin Cole: Exactly.
Jason McClain: Well Kevin, we are going to take a short break to support our sponsors. This is Jason McClain and I am here with Kevin Cole and we will be right back.
[Music]
Jason McClain: We are back and I am your host Jason McClain and we are speaking with Kevin Cole of an emotional mastery, purpose and neural linguistic programming. Before the break we were talking about emotional mastery. Kevin, now I want to ask you something about neuro linguistic programming. First, what is neuro linguistic programming?
Kevin Cole: Well Jason, NLP has many different definitions because there are so many techniques, philosophies, and healing modalities that have been combined over the years into a structured format that is continually growing and evolving. So many of the lessons in NLP by the way are thousands of years old and many of the techniques are some of the most advanced scientific tools for changes on the planet today.
So for me to really give a simple definition of what NPL is, frankly is a little bit challenging; however, I will tell you that my personal favorite definition if NPL is that it is simply a users manual for your brain. Ok. To add to that some of the most powerful lessons that this owners manual teaches us, is how we individually process information through our physical senses and how we can use this understanding to guide our own thoughts and emotions, may sound a little familiar, In some extremely empowering ways.
Jason McClain: So, an owners manual for you brain. I think we could all benefit from having one of those. At the same time I think if we were born with it I am not sure if many of us would have read it. I mean how many of us have read the manual for our VCR?
[Laughter]
Kevin Cole: And, that is the thing. We all are born with it, how as I have heard it said many times before, it is a user manual but it is not necessarily user friendly.
Jason McClain: Mmm.
Kevin Cole: So again, it has taken a lot of techniques for again, thousands of year again to the most modern cutting edge techniques today to evolve NLP.
Jason McClain: Perfect. So that is what NLP is. Why is it important?
Kevin Cole: Well Jason, I mean to answer that question allow me to just give you a brief example. Let’s say that someone is playing a movie over and over in their head of an argument they may have had earlier. Again, it could be with your spouse, boss, or child. Whatever it may be you may be playing this “film’ if you will, over and over in your head, or perhaps even constructing something over and over in your head that has not happened yet.
Now, with NLP instead of just trying to not think about, which by the way nine out of ten times is just not possible… I mean to give you the common example in my field, often times people will say “Ok, do not think of a purple elephant.” Of course you mind has to imagine the purple elephant in order to not think about it. So it is not a matter of trying to not think about something.
Jason McClain: At the very least that is a two step process, right? Even if you are successful at it, the unconscious mind of course does not understand negation.
Kevin Cole: Exactly. So, with NLP what you can do literally change some of the sub modalities, if you will, and what I mean by that is that you can change some of the things that you are seeing and hearing. Now Jason, what I mean by that, what I mean by changing the sub modalities of what they are seeing and hearing, I mean actually going inside your own head and changing the tonality.
In some cases even playing the video or film, if you will, literally playing it backwards in your own head and often time’s even hearing music. As strange as this may sound what this does when you play it backwards and then forwards again, what this does is it totally scrambles the neurological connections that have formed in your brain that causes you to feel what you feel when you think about this particular memory or this created memory, if you will, meaning something that has not even occurred yet.
Jason McClain: Sure. Since the time of the Buddha 2500 years now… In the east is has been common knowledge that we do not respond to reality we respond to our sense organs and the way we interpret that pictures, smells, sounds, tastes and the Buddha said imaginations. [xx] of course is language. What is funny is the west did not pick that up until Kant, who said we do not experience reality directly we experience it through these never objective filters, tools, sense organs.
Kevin Cole: Kant, I am not familiar with Kant.
Jason McClain: Immanuel Kant, and our listeners can of course look him up on their own if they want it is K a n t. But, really, back to neuro linguistic programming. You know I am curious you have given us a little bit of the how, but give us some more tools. So that people can walk away with a real sense after listening to this. Of how they could use neuron linguistic programming to improve their lives.
Kevin Cole: Well, I am actually really glad you asked that. I will actually give you an example of something that people can do right now. By the way, I want to mention that if anyone happens to be listening to this Podcast in their car, if you are really excited to try this to go ahead a pull over and do this but whatever you do, do not do this while driving.
You will understand why in just a moment. For those people who are not driving and can do this what I would like you to do is simply to stand up. I do not care if this seems a little bit strange. Obviously, if you are listening to this on you ipod there is no one else around so, what I want you to do is I want you to literally just start straight up at the ceiling.
What I want you to do is just smile ear to ear to the point where until literally you can feel the muscles starting to strain. Then what I want you to do is just notice that by how changing your physiology in this particular way you literally start to release a small amount and in some cases a large amount of serotonin which of course is sort of the happy chemical in your brain.
By just doing this you can literally change the way that you feel. So if you are having a bad day just take some time out and maybe instead of or along with just taking a couple deep breaths, do this particular exercise. I also want to mention very briefly, some people I know are listening to this and going “well there are going to be time when I just do not feel like doing this.”
First of all, I say do it anyway. Second of all I will give you another option. One thing that you can do that is very, very simple and you can even do at your desk. Let’s say that you are furious at your boss and you are just having a really, really bad day, and you do not want to embarrass yourself by just going to the bathroom or something and staring at the ceiling.
What you can do is just simply take a pen, stick it between your teeth, and nobody is going to question this because a lot of people do this, stick it between your teeth and do it in a way that sort of simulates a smile. Of course it is a very small smile but it still releases a small amount of serotonin to your brain. It is telling your brain, wait a minute we are smiling we are doing the same thing and it is going to release those same chemicals.
Jason McClain: That mind, body connection. It is all one system. It is just amazing isn’t it?
Kevin Cole: Mind, body, and spirit. Absolutely.
Jason McClain: So Kevin, I am curious neuron linguistic programming, if people really get access to these tools what will it make possible in their lives or what will it make available to them?
Kevin Cole: Well, it will… Again, everything that emotional mastery will make available to them. However, there is so much more. The possibilities with NLP are endless. I mean your communication skills with people are just incredibly increased. Your ability to learn faster increases tremendously. Let me put it this way, anything you would like to be better at, you can learn how to do with NLP.
Jason McClain: Well, I think we should leave that right there.
[Laughter]
[Music starts fading in]
Jason McClain: So anything you want to be better at, anything you want to excel at, achieve at, or do more effectively NLP or neuron linguistic programming can assist you in doing that.
Kevin Cole: 100 percent.
Jason McClain: That is fantastic. We are going to take a short break to support our sponsors. This is Jason McClain and I am with Kevin Cole and we will be right back.
[Music fades in]
Jason McClain: We are back and I am your host Jason McClain and I am here talking with Kevin Cole about nuero linguistic programming before the break. And Kevin, now I want to talk to you about purpose. What is purpose?
Kevin Cole: Well Jason, purpose is what gives meaning to everything that has ever happened to us both good and bad or what may seem good and bad. It is something that is within alignment with something important to each individual and what they are most passionate about in life. That is the basic answer.
Jason McClain: Ok. Why is purpose important? Can you really give us some detail around why purpose is important?
Kevin Cole: Well I will put it this way Jason, I really believe that understanding your true purpose is valuable or invaluable for that matter for people to discover so that they can continually be pulled in life, within absolute pleasure and joy that most people do not get to truly appreciate.
In life for example, you may have dreams that you want to achieve but most of the time we have to continually push ourselves to achieve that dream. Let’s say you want to have a family and you want to have a big house whatever it may be, all too often we have to push ourselves for it. When you live you life on purpose, although you may have to push yourself on occasion for the most part there is, for the risk of sounding a little out there, there is almost like an invisible force that is actually pulling you and assisting you in some pretty incredible ways.
Jason McClain: So pulling, being pulled by something or called by something rather than trying to push and trudge through and generate from nothing the things that you want. Is that part of what you are saying?
Kevin Cole: That is part of it. All too often I have clients all the time that say “I will be honest with you Kevin, I just do not want to get out of bed in the morning sometimes.” Which by the way, we have all been through and even when you live you life on purpose it does not mean that you may not want to sleep in a little bit extra, we all do.
[Laughter]
Kevin Cole: Bottom line is, when you are living your life on purpose everything changes. You do not want to go to bed at night because you are just so inspired and just want to continually move towards your purpose and you literally can not wait to get up in the morning.
Jason McClain: So, it seems like it is both about living an inspired life, but also a fulfilled life.
Kevin Cole: Absolutely. It is finding that, it is aligning what is important to you in life and sort of integrating what is most important to you in life and realizing this is part of your purpose.
Jason McClain: MMmm. Well Kevin, my next question then is, how does someone discover their purpose? This sounds so exciting to be able to uncover.
Kevin Cole: Well, again this is something that goes back thousands of years since the beginning of time. There has been many different ways that people discover their true purpose in life. One particular way that I will give you is, well the first step. Simply, ask “What is my purpose?” and continually ask. You will start coming up with answers just like going on the internet and for those of you who are familiar with askjeeves.com.
So that is the first step and one simple although not necessarily the most effective way is to simply ask yourself “ What is my true purpose in life?” and write down every answer that comes to your mind until the answer you write literally brings you to tears of joy. Again this is one way, and again is unfortunately not always the most accurate or effective way. But for those people that are just curious about it and would like to start digging in that realm, that is something that I would suggest.
Jason McClain: So they can begin exploring in their own mind that way, in their own heart.
Kevin Cole: Exactly, exactly.
Jason McClain: Wonderful. Kevin, when someone is living a purpose filled life what does that make possible in life, what does it open up, or what does it allow for?
Kevin Cole: Well again Jason, living a life on purpose what it does again, just like a lot of what we talked about today, it opens everything up. It completely changes your experience not only day to day but minute by minute. You start noticing things that are leading you on your purpose and you start changing the way that you felt about what you thought we negative events in the past, because you start learning how they were a part of what you true purpose is.
One of the ways that I like to look at it is that a lot of my quote and quote negative experience were simply training to get me where I am today. I happen to, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I happen to like myself a great deal. I am able to look back at my past experiences and say “If I did not go through that I would not be who I am today.”
Jason McClain: Sure.
Kevin Cole: I went through that because that is what was meant to have happened to lead me in my purpose, in my true purpose in life.
Jason McClain: I think, everybody should like themselves a great deal. Even love themselves I think it is the most important love affair you can have.
Kevin Cole: Absolutely. I was actually going to say that but I did not want to sound too arrogant. But, actually that is one of the things that I teach my clients to do. It is one of the key factors. I will not get too into it but two of the factors that I target are self love, and forgiveness. Because, without those two no real work can be done but, again I will not get too into that.
Jason McClain: So Kevin, we are almost out of time but I want to ask you one more question. What do you attribute you success as a coach to? If you were to pick one principal or one concept what do you attribute you success as a coach to?
Kevin Cole: Well, if I had to chose one thing, or give you one answer, I would say I do not teach theory. Ok. What I mean by that is I have learned these skills on myself, I have mastered them on myself before I teach them to other people because, I do not want to teach just theory. I want to make sure that I understand how these processes, techniques, philosophies work and make sure that they do work.
Jason McClain: Fantastic. I bet that gives you not only credibility with your clients but allows you, because you have had the life that you have, it allows you to relate to them wherever their mind and heart is at as well.
Kevin Cole: Absolutely, absolutely. I will also be honest with a client. There are certain things that I simply can not relate to, that I have not experienced. I will be very honest about that with them and try to explain to them in a different way that I may be able to relate. I will never pretend to understand another persons experience.
Jason McClain: Got you. Well Kevin, you do one on one coaching over the phone, in person?
Kevin Cole: Both, both.
Jason McClain: Ok. And, how can people reach you?
Kevin Cole: Well, there is two different ways that you can reach me. You can either send me an email, you can send it directly to [email protected], of course you could also check out my website which is www.empowermentquest.com, and for those that would like to give me a call directly please feel free you can reach me at 1888-95-QUEST. That is 1888-95-Q U E S T, or numerically of course at 1888-957-8378. Again, that is 1888-957-8378.
[Music fades in]
Jason McClain: Well thank you Kevin for joining us and sharing your wisdom and insight.
Kevin Cole: Thank you for allowing me to be here
Jason McClain: Again my name is Jason McClain, you can reach me by email at [email protected], and there is two l’s in personallifemedia.com. You can also reach me through my website evolutionaryawareness.com. That brings us to the end of our show thank you for listening. For text and transcripts of this show and other shows on the personal life media network please visit our website at personallifemedia.com. This is your host Jason McClain, your guide for your personal evolutional.
[Music]
Female: Find more shows like this on personallifemedia.com