The biggest change for me would be gaining the courage to deal with situations rather than putting them off. I didn’t have the confidence before the course. I used to put managers and people who were highly educated on a pedestal, and this made it difficult for me to communicate effectively with them. 

Now I have the confidence to speak to anyone. I can walk into a room and speak to a group of people. I can do public speaking. It’s like fear has gone from my life. I don’t fear anymore; I haven’t come across anything that I’m afraid of tackling. 

I’m even looking into moving on to family land. I’ve talked about it before, but never done anything about it. Since the course I’ve looked at seceding and a whole lot of other stuff, such as seceding Maori land. It seemed difficult and overwhelming before, but now I’ve done it. I’ve spoken in front of a judge at the Maori Land court and was the spokesperson for our family. 

I’ve created a vision board workshop for 17 people in our community that I’m facilitating.

I’ve had the courage to say no. 

Previously I was a ‘yes’ person; I’d always say yes, even if I wasn’t happy about it, I’d say ‘yes I’ll do it’, even if it affected my own wellbeing. So recently I took the opportunity to explore how a decision would affect me, my team and my job, and examine if it would fit in with my life and my position. I know my worth now. I wanted to look at the impact of these things so I didn’t actually commit to a decision.  Eventually, I said no to one meeting and said yes to something else, because it fit with my values and beliefs — as opposed to doing it for them.

I loved training with Stephanie and the whole team that were participating, seeing the shifts in others and feeling the shifts in myself. But I really enjoyed the goal setting and the meta model questions. Knowing the questions has helped me to get specific information and to understand when I’m not being specific but generalising things. I’m getting better as ‘owning’ my language; this has been easier as I become more confident.

I have the confidence to challenge others.

I can hear a whole story and listen patiently without coming up with a reply. I can listen without interrupting. For example, by watching someones eye accessing I can see that they’re talking to themselves and can make sure I give them the time to think and to process.  Previously I couldn’t give people that time —  I’d just cut in. I had no idea how intimidating that would have been!

The three biggest benefits

1. Recognising that I’m always communicating, I can keep a positive mindset and use the skills I’ve learnt. And I’m combining a whole lot of skills — they just drop in at certain times.
2. I’m behaving with integrity; I’m following through and I’m doing what I say I’ll do. Previously I had a habit of saying I’d do things and then didn’t get to them. And people have commented on this too.
3. People love when I use meta model questions with them, because they get such aha moments.

I would definitely recommend the course; it is life changing and it has the ability to affect not only the course participants but others around them and in the community. It’s worth every cent. It’s life changing and people need to do it. It doesn’t matter where they are in their lives. For example, on our NLP Practitioner Training we were all at different places in our lives and yet everyone of us grew from the course.

Stephanie is experienced at what she does, she allowed space for people to be vulnerable, she bought humour, patience — she brought all of her to that course.  And I think we were all very lucky to have met her and have that time with her.