“And what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversation?”
- from ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll
Over the past three years I have authored literally hundreds of online interactive NLP modules, and I often paraphrase Alice’s observation from the point of view of content authoring.
“What is the use of teaching material without good stories and relatable examples?”
I’ve taught NLP courses to businesses since 2006 and used self-paced (online) content since 2011. And for a long time, finding really strong teaching stories for all that content was probably my biggest challenge (apart from dealing with my eagle-eyed editor!)
My head was full of my own NLP journey and the classic stories and metaphors I heard there. Many of those felt – to me – somewhat dated, and not engaging for my business audience.
I did a lot of gazing-out-of-the-window, and a fair bit of waking at 3am to scribble down an idea.
Then recently, a certain global pandemic gave me an unexpected gift.
I had been using Skype for years before Zoom and the other technologies came along, providing virtual coaching and mentoring to my clients. But now, Zoom became necessary to keep me in contact with my friends and family, not just my clients.
But my ears and eyes somehow refused to ignore the coaching topics inside a lot of those chats.
And what I heard – and still hear every time I settle down to catch up with a friend on the other side of the world – are these wonderful, engaging, TRUE stories. My Zoom conversations are my go-to library for illustrating my online content units. Of course I tweak the tales, but their inherent authenticity shines through (or so I am told!).
And I’ve come to understand the value of finding NLP in everything.
Where do your teaching stories and metaphors come from? How often do you update them?