Know what it’s like when you’ve been following the work of an expert in your field?

Someone you put on a pedestal and admire. You buy their books and enjoy their material – be it website, blog, e-newsletters etc.  Then there’s the excitement when you discover there’s an opportunity to meet them in person.  Well, that happened to me yesterday.  I was lucky enough to be there at Cheltenham Town Hall to hear Michaell Neill talk about his particular topic that evening “An End To Stress”.

Michael Neill is one of the world’s leading success coaches. He has been Paul McKenna’s personal coach for many years and teaches alongside Paul at large scale events in London. Michael lived in the UK for 14 years and is now based in his native US where he offers personal coaching sessions in Hollywood and throughout the West coast for movie stars and moguls, media people and business leaders. He appears regularly on TV and radio in the US and UK and his radio chat show ‘Bringing Your Genius to Life’ has over 30,000 listeners each week.

It’s a worry sometimes, as you never know, when you meet them in the flesh, whether all your illusions of that person are going to be shattered!

Not in the case of Michael Neill – what a charismatic, genuine, lovely person he turned out to be, along with being  a captivatingly funny speaker.

He gave his keen audience a new insight and new perspectives for dealing with stress. Here’s just a taster (my interpretation) of what he said :

• We need to quieten our minds and let new thoughts in.
• We can have less stress without the world having to change first.
• “Thought is no more powerful than a tea bag without hot water!”
• Our thoughts affect everything we do.
• We often feel the problem is “out there” – so we keep wanting to change what’s on the outside of us eg: we want to look pretty, be famous, then we’ll be  happy. We might think “I need to change my job”, ” I need to change my relationship” etc.  But Michael expressed if you keep doing this to feel better – good luck – you’ll burn out!

• “Germ theory” – stress is outside of us and we can catch it.  So there may be many “stress germs” in the office, but not so many “stress germs” in the park.
• We’re hard-wired not to be scared by our own voice – we recognise it’s us.  We have the same hardwire when it comes to our mental health. Stress lowers thought recognition.  Worry is just a habit of thought.
• When we’re stressed – it’s a warning light – you’re thinking yourself unwell.
• Wait – and pause – and you’ll go back to your state of clarity.
• Michael shared an example of a time when he asked a stressed lady “How do you make a bowl of murky water clear?” Answer – just let it settle.  Do the same with your mind – the nature of your mind is clear.  Just give it a little bit of time – a moment – and it will go right back to clear.  Live more of your life from that place.  You won’t have any anger management issues – it will pass.

He crammed so many more valuable insights into the evening – too many to mention here – you’ll just have to try and catch him between his travels to the UK and the USA.

I’ve already read Michael’s books from cover to cover.  Being there at the talk last night has given me a “gentle nudge” to pull those books off the shelves again and go back and play with the ideas in each chapter.  Then bring these ideas together and share them with my family, friends and Clients.

If you want to learn more about Michael Neill – I highly recommend his books :  A few years ago a generous Client of mine studied NLP with Michael in London and treated me to a personally signed copy of  “You Can Have What You Want”  then  I treated myself to “Feel Happy Now” and “Super Coach”.  If you prefer to listen to CD’s – “Effortless Success” a 6 CD set is excellent value and will help you to create a life that makes you go “Wow”!