Active listening – as opposed to passive listening – shows the person you’re listening to (whether they’re presenting, in a group, or you’re having a one-on-one discussion) that you’re engaged, interested, and taking in what they’re saying. If you’re having an important conversation, showing you’re actively listening will make the other person feel more positive about the discussion – which means a better outcome all round.

Now that you’ve learned how to be an active listener, why not try another of our microlearning courses?

We’ve got courses on giving and receiving feedback, effective leadership for managers, and assertiveness, which can be used in a business setting but are also great for personal development.

To talk to us about putting together a package of business coaching and training, including online content like this, get in touch.

Knowing what you’ve got in your skills pool is really important when it comes to planning your training and recruitment. A skills matrix is a tool designed to show you what skills you have in your team, how confident and competent your team are at those skills, and where the gaps are. Watch the video for an explanation and overview of the skills matrix and how it works, and then download the spreadsheet so you can get started on the skills matrix for your team.

Now that you’ve learned how to create and use a skills matrix, why not try another of our microlearning courses?

We’ve got courses on giving and receiving feedback, effective leadership for managers, and assertiveness, which can be used in a business setting but are also great for personal development.

To talk to us about putting together a package of business coaching and training, including online content like this, get in touch.

Got 10 minutes? This microlearning course is designed to fit into your down-time. It’s designed to help you learn to be more assertive, at work and in your personal life, so that you can get the most out of every interaction.

Now that you’ve learned to be more assertiveness, why not try another of our microlearning courses?

If you’d like to get better at what you do, have a look at our NLP Business Practitioner course. It’s designed to give you presenting, goal-setting, selling, negotiating and communication skills that you can put into practice in any career. Many of our delegates find that the course has a positive effect in their personal lives too, and that after completing the course they’ve made real steps towards achieving the lifestyle they really want to live.

Change is a key part of life, and it’s certainly a key part of business. It’s a constant, and the only thing you can be certain of is that it’s going to happen. The way you deal with change is important if you’re going to make that change a success. We’ve done a lot of work looking at different ideas around change and have come up with a process that works really well. In this chapter, we’ll introduce you to that process.

In this chapter we’ll look at developing a strategy for change, and what you need to consider when implementing change in an organisation. What’s the impact the change is going to have on your organisation? What’s the purpose of the change and what are you hoping to achieve? We’ll answer these questions, along with lots more, in this session.

Once you’ve got a strategy in place, you need to sell this change to your team and get them to buy in. If they’re bought in, implementing this change will be easy – if they’re not, you’ll struggle and you likely won’t achieve everything you’re hoping to. In this chapter we’ll look at ensuring your team is on board, and your change is a success.

Here are some useful sessions on effective communication that will help you get your organisation on-side.

Now that you’ve learned effective ways to manage change, why not try another of our Toolkit courses?

For more support dealing with change on a business and personal level, have a look at our Evolve or Die course. It’ll walk you through the process of taking your life or business to the next level and give you useful exercises and a fail-safe timeline for achieving your goals.

Got 10 minutes? This microlearning course is designed to fit into your down-time. We’ll look at the difference between management and leadership, why it matters, and how to become a successful leader.

Now that you’ve learned the difference between managers and leaders, why not try another of our microlearning courses?

If you’re starting a new venture like a podcast or coaching business, have a look at our Evolve or Die course, which will walk you through the planning process and give you useful exercises and a fail-safe timeline for achieving your goals.

Thanks for joining me on The Mentor’s Toolkit. In the introduction we’ll look at what being a mentor really means, the difference between being a coach, counsellor and mentor, and some processes to help you become a more effective mentor.

In this chapter, we’ll look at the difference between active and passive listening, and how you can use active listening to help you become a supportive mentor.

One of the best ways of getting information from people is asking questions. In this chapter, we’ll learn how to use questions effectively, in the right situations, to help the person you’re mentoring.

As a mentor, you’ll often be required to help the person you’re mentoring set and achieve goals. In this session, we’ll look at some useful processes for goal setting.

Establishing a good connection between yourself and the person you’re mentoring will help you – and them – get the most out of the work you do together. That’s where rapport comes in: in this session, we’ll look at the importance of rapport and how to build it effectively.

Lots of people find giving feedback difficult, and often we tend to give more negative feedback than positive. In this chapter, we’ll look at how to deliver feedback in a structured way.

Telling stories is a really effective way to get your point across, or to lead someone you’re mentoring to a conclusion without being too direct. In this chapter we’ll look at using metaphor, or story-telling, to make you a more effective mentor.

Now that you’ve learned how to become a great mentor, you might like to try our Professional Coach Course.

If you’d like to go more in-depth and learn to change your behaviour to get the most out of your life, or work towards big personal or professional goals, have a look at the NLP Business Practitioner course. The Business Practitioner is a group course that runs over 10 two-hour sessions, and will help you understand the way you and others think and behave, so you can get the most out of every interaction.

Got 10 minutes? This microlearning course is designed to fit into your down-time. It’s designed to give you practical methods for delivering and receiving feedback in a way that ensures both sides come out of the discussion happy: essential for workplace conversations and really useful for personal conversations too.

Now that you’ve learned how to give and receive feedback effectively, why not try another of our microlearning courses?

If you’d like to get better at what you do, have a look at our NLP Business Practitioner course. It’s designed to give you presenting, goal-setting, selling, negotiating and communication skills that you can put into practice in any career. Many of our delegates find that the course has a positive effect in their personal lives too, and that after completing the course they’ve made real steps towards achieving the lifestyle they really want to live.

Got 10 minutes? This microlearning course is designed to fit into your down-time. We’ll look at a useful exercise for prioritising your workload, and you’ll finish the 10-minute video with a plan you can put into action right away.

Now that you’ve learned how to prioritise your workload, why not try another of our microlearning courses?

If you’re starting a new venture like a podcast or coaching business, have a look at our Evolve or Die course, which will walk you through the planning process and give you useful exercises and a fail-safe timeline for achieving your goals.

If you create videos, audio recording or podcasts, knowing how to edit your audio so that it sounds clear and professional is essential. Perhaps you’re thinking about starting a business, beginning a podcast or becoming a coach: video and audio recordings can be a useful tool for lots of professions and in this video I’ll show you how to ensure your audio sounds great.

Now that you’ve learned how to edit great audio, why not try another of our microlearning courses? [LINK]

If you’re starting a new venture like a podcast or coaching business, have a look at our Evolve or Die course [LINK], which will walk you through the planning process and give you useful exercises and a fail-safe timeline for achieving your goals.

Thanks for joining me on The NLP Core Skills course. You’ve probably heard about NLP in the past, and maybe you want to learn more about it: this course will give you a good grounding. We take a pragmatic, practical view of NLP, that is designed to give you useful tools to help you get the most out of your life.

An overview of NLP: what it is, how it can help you, and some of the history. Essentially, it’s all about communication; analysing the way you and others think and communicate so you can become a persuasive and confident communicator.

In this chapter we’re going to be looking at the unconscious and conscious mind, and how you can use these concepts to access the way your mind works at an unconscious level, and to control things (like your stress response) that you might have previously thought were outside your control.

Next, we’re going to look at the difference between perception and reality. Have you ever noticed that people interpret the same situation in different ways? We’ll look at why, and how this understanding can help you gain empathy and understand the way other people think – so you can better negotiate, engage with them, persuade and entertain them.

In this chapter we’re looking at the belief systems loop, and how changing your behaviour can change the results you get.

The way we communicate with people can dramatically affect the way the message is received. This session will look at what makes effective communication, the how to achieve it, from the words you use, your tone of voice, to non-verbal communication.

In this session we’re going to talk about rapport, a crucial element of good communication. Building rapport with others is critical to getting them on your side, whether you’re delivering a presentation, working in sales, marketing, HR, or any job where you need to work with, get along with or persuade other people.

Representational systems are the way we interpret the world and our experiences inside our head: you remember the way a memory felt, smelled, looked or sounded. When you can work out other people’s representational systems, you can find the best way to communicate them using their rep system.

Now that you’ve completed the NLP Core Skills course, you should have a good understanding of NLP and how you can make it work for you. If you’d like to gain a deeper understanding of NLP and learn some more advanced techniques, have a look at our Personal Development courses, or consider joining our face-to-face online NLP Business Practitioner course [LINK].

Thanks for joining me on The Presenter’s Toolkit. If you find public speaking challenging or scary, you’ve come to the right place: this course will give you the tools to present your ideas confidently in front of an audience, and a model for structuring a compelling, persuasive presentation.

Before you start putting your presentation together, it’s important to decide what the purpose of your presentation is: what are you hoping to achieve by the end?

Good preparation is key to a great presentation. Taking the time to prepare your performance will make you feel more confident, and it can help you create a more persuasive environment for your audience.

The best way to create an entertaining, convincing presentation is to really understand your audience. This exercise will help you step into your audience’s shoes to understand their needs, concerns and drivers.

In this chapter we’ll look at anchoring, a useful tool for accessing a particular state (eg. feeling calm or confident) in yourself, or in your audience.

It’s really important to have a structure to your presentation, whether you’re speaking in front of a big crowd for an hour, or having an important conversation with someone face-to-face. This chapter will give you a useful way to structure your presentation to ensure you carry your audience along with you.

Now that you’ve planned your presentation, it’s time to deliver it. In this chapter we’ll look at a range of techniques to help you communicate your ideas effectively in a way that keeps your audience engaged.

Understanding the way other see the world around them can be helpful in building rapport: if your audience is visual (for example a group of designers), using visual metaphors and aids will help you ‘speak their language’. In this chapter, we’ll look at how to work out how to use this to your advantage when presenting.

Visual aids can be a really useful tool for engaging your audience. In this chapter we’ll look at how to use visual aids to capture your audience’s attention.

Humans love stories: they’re a great way to keep a presentation interesting and to convey your message to your audience in an engaging and persuasive way. Here’s how to use metaphor and stories to take your presentation to the next level.

The Charisma Pattern is a technique that has been modelled on really successful, charismatic presenters: people who are great at keeping an audience’s attention and delivering a memorable performance. In this chapter we’ll look at the Charisma Pattern and how to make it work for you.

In this video, I’ll introduce you to the Satir Categories and how you can use them to get great results when you’re presenting. We’ll look at different styles of presenting, and how you can adopt these different styles throughout your presentation to get your audience on board.

A strong introduction is essential for catching your audience’s attention right from the beginning. Here’s how to structure and deliver a great introduction that will ensure your audience keep listening.

Now that you’ve learned how to become a great presenter, you might like to learn how to manage stress – especially if the idea of delivering a presentation makes you feel anxious. Try our short Toolkit course, The Stress Management Toolkit, to learn how to keep stress and anxiety at bay.

If you’d like to go more in-depth and learn to change your behaviour to get the most out of your life, or work towards big personal or professional goals, have a look at the NLP Business Practitioner course. The Business Practitioner is a group course that runs over 10 two-hour sessions, and will help you understand the way you and others think and behave, so you can get the most out of every interaction.

Thanks for joining me on the Resilience Toolkit. We’ll start with an outline of the topics covered in this course, and answer the question ‘what is resilience?’.

Find your starting point: fill out this interactive PDF to find out your resilience score.

What makes some people more resilient than others? Can resilience be learned? (Yes!). We’ll look at the behaviours and beliefs that make resilient people so good at handling change, and how you can make them work for you.

Now that you know the beliefs and behaviours that will make you more resilient, we’ll look at useful ways of implementing these changes and making them stick.

Now that you’ve learned how to become more resilient, you’ll be much better at handling unexpected changes and challenges when they come along. If you’d like to learn more on this topic to improve your overall wellbeing, try our Time Management Toolkit or our Stress Management Toolkit.

If you’d like to go more in-depth and learn to change your behaviour to get the most out of your life, or work towards big personal or professional goals, have a look at the NLP Business Practitioner course. The Business Practitioner is a group course that runs over 10 two-hour sessions, and will help you understand the way you and others think and behave, so you can get the most out of every interaction.