‘Get out of your own way!’
There are many stumbling blocks on the road to personal development, but international consultant Sue Knight puts it quite succinctly when identifying ourselves as so often being our own obstacle.
Described as ‘bringing the heart and soul to business’, Sue did a lot of training and business work before leaving the corporate world about 30 years ago after discovering neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) – an approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy.
“It’s a way of studying how you do things in terms of excellence and what makes a difference,” she said. “A process of modelling and the way a lot of people present themselves – they are the result of that modelling. We’ve learned a way of behaving, and ways of using language and often people have learned beliefs about themselves – most people get in their own way!
“Using NLP techniques like clean questions – where you keep yourself out of the question – which then challenge your own thought processes and behaviours.
“NLP has become accepted as an important part of business development, because to develop your business, you have to develop yourself.
“But back when I first started exploring it, NLP was mostly used in the world of therapy. I only knew of two business people using NLP because personal development was separate to business development at the time.
“I went to school to learn all about it in London for two years and started to apply it in business training, when Nicholas Brealey Publishing saw NLP in business as a new field and asked me to write a book on it.”
NLP at Work is now on its fourth edition and has been translated into 28 languages, with Sue lecturing and running NLP workshops all over the world from Greece, Turkey and UAE to South Africa and Canada.
And Rotherham, too, as Sue, who won the NLP in Business category in the NLP Awards 2017, recently came to the town to deliver an NLP workshop to some of the city region’s leading business women.
Sue was invited by Julie Kenny CBE, well-known South Yorkshire business woman and an early convert to NLP after working with Sue herself.
Julie sits on many boards and wears countless hats, including her current role as chair of Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust. She founded security system manufacturer Pyronix which had a multi-million-pound turnover when she sold it in 2016, is a a member of the LEP and a former High Sheriff of South Yorkshire.
On why she asked Sue to conduct the session at Aston Hall Hotel, Julie said: “One of the things that really impacted on my life was a meeting with Sue. She taught me about NLP and how to change the messages you give yourself.
“I can honestly say that this had an impact on both my personal life and my work life and I carry those messages I learned to this very day.”
