I’m writing today because we really need to up-our-game to address the growing number of mental health issues that C19 has left in its wake. We need more people on our team; people like you.

 As much as we’re in the business of making a difference, it needs to also be profitable. Our training is expensive and I know that can be tremendously off-putting. But it’s not the worst thing about us. 

 I want to be transparent with you.

 As much as I want to sell our training, sell licences and help meet the needs of the Western World’s mental health crisis, the reality is the opportunity to do so will only appeal to a tiny percentage of those of you on our database. So read what I have to say and opt-out if you realise we’re not who you thought we were….

 Aligning your ethics and value with someone in a relationship is the best way to ensure it will work and that includes in business relationships too.

 So, here we go…

These are the worst bits about joining NLP4Kids: 

When we know that you’re interested in training with us, typically, the first person you encounter is Dani. Her job is to educate you on what we do and to see if you’re a good fit for us. If you are she will do everything in her power to sell you something. She’s passionate about doing this because she thinks that what our practitioners do is urgent and important work. She understands our mission because as well as talking to you, she also deals with all our calls from parents then matches them with our practitioners. Dani is the lady that talks to sobbing Mothers who feel suffocated with guilt for leaving their school refuser at school, clinging to a door frame. Dani is the person who talks to Fathers who have been alienated from their children after a difficult separation. She knows how much we need you and she isn’t afraid to try and sell you our training.

Being an NLP4Kids practitioner isn’t easy. 

Training with me is an utter blast but from there you won’t feel 100% prepared for what is coming next.

We can’t prepare you, because like learning to drive with a driving instructor, it isn’t the same as driving by yourself after you get your licence. We can’t let you go at it alone to ‘trial’ it before you’re qualified and we can’t hold your hand in a therapy session once the training is over. You have to be the sort of person who will answer the phone when a parent calls, you have to be self-motivated to write the content for your website. These are things we can’t do for you because these bits that are about building your own business. So when we have a new person on the team doesn’t do these things, we hassle them until they do. Don’t get me wrong, we’re lovely about it. But you’ll have Jade chasing you for documents relentlessly, so we can get things like a DBS done and Marie with her strong and formidable Irish accent, will be onto you for a business plan. If you’re really unfortunate you’ll have me mentoring you; hounding you week on week for updates on your progress and badgering you into choosing a niche subject to laser focus your business.

 Dealing with parents is hard and schools are worst still.

Parents can be as much needy as they are unreliable. Finding ‘your people,’ your ideal clients, takes time. Nothing is instant and when you’re new and your confidence is low it’s difficult to get the balance right between being assertive and being passive. We help with advertising in the early days and you’ll depend on that more than you should. You’ll expect a steady stream of reliable clients from it when the reality is that only comes from building your website and niching (as I’ve been encouraging in your mentoring.) The steady stream of clients really only happens when you and I are both proactive with marketing – good quality marketing. Don’t give me that nonsense about popping up a flyer in your local Tescos and call it ‘marketing activity.’ We have a model. I’ve been developing it for 15 years. I’m 100% happy for you to stray from that but only if it works better than the best of what I have developed already.

Schools are slow, broke and disorganised. You’ll need the patience of a saint and the perseverance of a toddler to cultivate those relationships in a meaningful way. It’s not impossible but you need to be realistic about it and you need to listen to the advice of the team. It’s not impossible and it’s not easy.

 The kids will break your heart. 

I didn’t really understand what it was to have your heart broken by something wonderful until I did this job.

I remember when I was younger, my Dad once said that a beautiful song had broken his heart. I didn’t understand it at the time but this job makes you understand a whole other spectrum of being, that right now, you don’t know about. You can’t know the feeling of a young person saying “You’ve saved my life” or even when they don’t say anything, but you can see with a 6th sense how their future would have gone without intervention.

It’s humbling, pride filling. 

It makes you feel that if that was the last of your days, you’d leave knowing that you were a good soul. It breaks your heart to see how beautiful humans can be whilst accepting that you can’t recreate that beauty everywhere, all of the time. And so you go to sleep feeling lucky to have been part of it all and hoping that this feeling will still be there when you wake up.

 So there is it. 

That’s the ugly truth of what it is to be part of our team. It’s not for everyone and so the unsubscribe link is below.

But in the event that you might want to have a chat instead, you can book that in here or give us a call on 0203 6677294

By Gemma Bailey

www.NLP4Kids.org/practitioners/gemma-bailey