If your life looks good on paper but feels stuck on the inside, this 90-minute session is for you. We will look at why outward success and inner stillness so often pull in different directions, and what you can do about it. Reserve your free seat here.
https://www.w3successacademy.com/f/outwardly-successful-inwardly-stuck
Welcome to Episode #171 of NLP Around You.
🧠 Thoughtful Thought
“You do not find your best state. You build a door to it.”
For your daily dose of Thoughtful Thoughts, get your Thoughtful Calendar here.
https://w3coach.com/thoughtful-calendar/
💬 NLP Quote Corner
“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.” — Marcus Aurelius
⏳ One Minute NLP – The State You Can Switch On
Think of a song that drops you straight into a memory. The opening bars play, and in a heartbeat you are somewhere else, someone else. You did not decide to feel it. The feeling simply arrived.
In NLP, we call this an anchor. An anchor is a link your nervous system builds between a trigger and a state. The trigger can be a sound, a touch, a word, a smell. Once the link is set, the trigger fires the state without asking your permission.
Most of your anchors were installed by accident. A notification tone that tightens your chest. A scent that softens you. A particular chair where focus comes easily. Life set those links while you were busy living.
The useful part is this. If anchors can form on their own, they can also be built on purpose. You choose a trigger, pair it with a state you want, and rehearse the two together until the link holds.
Pick one calm, capable moment this week, perhaps after a good walk or a clear conversation. While the feeling is full, press your thumb and forefinger together and hold for one slow breath. Repeat it a few times across the week. Then, just before your next hard moment, press the same two fingers and notice what comes back.
A state can arrive by accident. A state can also be built on purpose.
🔮 Meta Magic – The Surgeon’s Playlist
There is a heart surgeon who has done this for thirty years.
Before every operation, in the few minutes between scrubbing in and the first incision, she plays the same piece of music. Always the same one. The same recording, the same opening, the same slow build. The juniors used to think it was superstition. A lucky charm. They have stopped thinking that.
Watch her when the music starts.
Her shoulders drop a little. Her breathing slows. The noise in her head, the worry about the family in the waiting room, the email she did not finish, the case that went wrong years ago, all of it goes quiet. By the time the second movement begins, she is not a woman with a hundred thoughts. She is a pair of steady hands and a clear mind.
She did not plan this. Early in her career, a colleague happened to play that piece during a long, difficult case that went beautifully. She felt something settle in her that day, a kind of unhurried precision she had not known before. So she played it again the next time. And the next. Without meaning to, she was building a link. A few bars of music, paired again and again with a calm and exact state, until the music alone could open the door.
In NLP we would call that an anchor. She would just call it her music.
Here is the part worth sitting with. The calm was never in the song. The song is only the handle. The steadiness, the quiet, the exactness, was always hers. The music simply learned the shortest route to it, and now it walks her there in under a minute.
Most of us carry anchors too. We just installed them by accident, and many of them open the wrong doors. The tone of voice that makes us small again. The buzzing phone that arrives home carrying the whole bad day. The doorway we cannot cross without bracing.
The surgeon’s gift is not the playlist. It is that she noticed a door, and chose to keep using it.
So let me ask you this.
When you most need to be calm, or clear, or brave, you are usually reaching for that state from scratch, in the worst possible moment to be reaching for anything. What if you built the handle first, quietly, on an ordinary day? What would your music be?
📖 Hook from the Book
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” — Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
🎬 Movie Motivation
“Aal izz well.” (All is well.) This line from the film 3 Idiots reminds us that a phrase, repeated and paired with a steadier state, becomes a switch the mind learns to reach for under pressure.
🏆 Popular Post of the Week
Celebrating Father’s Day and Yoga Day: Two Days. One Lesson.
📢 Announcement of the Week
This Tuesday, 30th June, I am hosting a free live session called Outwardly Successful, Inwardly Stuck. 90 minutes on Zoom, 8:00 to 9:30 PM IST. No recording, so it is worth being in the room.
👉 Save your seat here.
https://www.w3successacademy.com/f/outwardly-successful-inwardly-stuck
Missed the past issues of NLP Around You? Find them all here.
https://w3coach.com/nlparoundyou/
Thoughtfully Yours,
Mehernosh Randeria
Your W3 Coach
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